Granite Creek Near Princeton/Coalmont and the Chinese Scavenging for Gold

Granite Creek Near Princeton/Coalmont BC Canada and the Chinese Scavenging for Gold

Susan Allison recalled the events of the Granite Creek discovery differently. Appointed regional Justice of the Peace on June 10, 1876, in the spring of 1885, her husband found himself adjudicating a dispute between two companies of Chinese prospectors over a claim on Granite Creek. When he realized that gold had indeed been found, J.F. staked his own claim, stocked up on supplies he knew miners would require, and got himself appointed as the regional Gold Commissioner on April 9th.
        The news that the outfit of Briggs and Bromley made $400 from the gravel of Granite Creek in one summer afternoon’s work in 1885 electrified the West. Hundreds of fortune hunters converged on the stream and by the end of October Allison’s pen had recorded the names of 62 companies in the claims register. By the following January, 900 people, one third of them Chinese, resided in the settlement. Depending on who you read, any where up to fourteen hotels, most with saloons, lined the “streets.” With three blacksmiths shops, seven stores and all the other services demanded by miners, come the end of 1887 what some have erroneously called “Granite City” was the third-largest town in B.C. By the end of 1888, it was all but deserted, and on April 4th of 1907, there was no-one left to fight the fire that razed the remaining buildings.