Bits and Pieces . . .
- Bill Gow was telegraph agent in 1912.
- The first construction camp was started a few miles east of Burns Lake in 1911. Bob McDonald supervised the building of the camp.
- Major railway construction project at the rock cuts east of Burns Lake. Two years to complete.
- In the beginning of May 1914, Frank Swannell arrived at McKenna's Roadhouse by horseback from Rose Lake. In his words, "18 miles. Track very muddy, the road impassible." At the end of the month he left with Dick Carroll by boat, but after running into ice they ended up walking the rest of the way to Freeport. From there they attempted the trip to Priestly by horseback but were turned back by heavy flooding. They tried again the next day with no success. A week later he finally managed to walk to Priestly. He reported the railway roadbed along the Endako River as being very bad with water lapping at the grade.
- First passenger train passed through Burns Lake on August 10, 1914.
- In the fall of 1914 the G.T.P. built their railway station in Burns Lake. Prior to that, Mr. Raymond Slaker operated as station agent and telegraph operator from a railraod boxcar.
- The Burns Lake post office officially opened for business in April of 1910 with Malcolm McKinley as postmaster. He resigned in September and William A. Goaw took over untill he resigned in March of 1913. Then M.H. Laidlaw became postmaster in April of 1913 and held the position untill resigning in November of 1916. Jas McKenna then became postmaster on February 1, 1917.
- Barney Mulvaney won the reminents of the Priestly construction camp in a poker game one night. The next day he packed everything to Burns Lake where he set up his own tent town along side the railway tracks.
- The Royal Bank opened a temp branch in Burns Lake in
1919 and a new permanent branch opened the following
year.Mr. Miles Henderson was the first manager.
- In 1922 Mr. Sidney Goodwin started the first newspaper
in Burns Lake called, "The Observer".
|
