Fisherville
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Old
Mining Town of Wild Horse Creek.
Image courtesy of Fort Steele Heritage Town Archives, FS.368.5
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The main residence
and supply centre for the miners of Wild Horse Creek, Fisherville boomed
to a population of 5,000 in 1865. Businesses included: saloons, general
stores, a steam-powered sawmill, restaurants and a brewery.
Many of the buildings
did not have a very good future however, since it was soon discovered
that the town was built on gold deposits. Most were pulled or burnt down
in order to extract the gold they stood upon. Many of the people rushing
to Wild Horse, no matter where they had travelled from, brought animosity
against minority groups with them. These prejudices focused especially
on the Chinese, who had become a staple element of the goldrush regions.
'John Chinamen' had come to Wild Horse Creek in full force in 1866, acting
on the favourable reports of those Chinese had settled earlier on the
outer edges of the goldrush activity. They would soon come to be a major
part of the Wild Horse as the white miners pulled up stakes and left for
better gold prospects elsewhere.
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The town of Fisherville
like many boomtowns before, perished quickly when the boom times subsided,
leaving the once vibrant town to fall into rack and ruin. After the 1860's,
however, the diminished town of Fisherville continued to be a home to
the Chinese placer miners and other Chinese who lived in the area. While
most commercial activity concentrated in the town of Fort Steele (located
to the southwest of Wild Horse Creek) many of the area's Chinese still
chose to live at Fisherville.
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Wild
Horse Creek Post Office (1883)
Image courtesy of Fort Steele Heritage Town Archives, FS.10.1
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Did
we believe the mines of Kootenay to be too poor to remunerate or even
attract a white population, the circumstances of their falling into the
hands of Chinese would hardly be a matter of regret….But we have every
reason to believe that…the Kootenay mines are not poor, [but] are very
fair average diggings…. But there is another ground upon which we regard
as a calamity, the advent of a Chinese population in a mining camp capable
of sustaining a population of Europeans. The Chinese do not become subjects
of our country ….While engaging in extracting gold-the country's wealth-they
contribute little…towards the revenue or the institutions of the country…Of
all classes who come to this Colony the Chinese are unquestionably the
least profitable.
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The British Columbian,
November 14, 1866.
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