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Early History Of Cache Creek - Part 2
 
by John Stewart

Cache Creek became an important station on the Cariboo Road because of a short-lived gold rush on the Big Bend of the Columbia River in 1866. To facilitate access into the region, a wagon road was built from Cache Creek to Savona's Ferry on Kamloops Lake. From there, miners could take a paddle wheeler to Seymour Arm of Shuswap Lake, then overland to the Columbia River. From then on, Cache Creek was the place that passengers and mail transferred to the stage for Kamloops and the Okanagan.

The first mail run to the Big Bend Country in 1866 involved an impressive physical feat. Moses Lumby, for whom the town of Lumby is named, walked from Cache Creek to Savona with the mail on his back. From Savona he took a boat and rowed himself all the way to Seymour Arm, then walked to the Columbia River to deliver the mail.

In the meantime, William Sandford opened Cache Creek House and advertised it as the best accommodation for people en route to the Big Bend. The same year, James Campbell, who earlier had founded a ranch on the Bonaparte River, opened the Cache Creek Hotel. By the 1880's, he owned the telegraph office and a general store as well. Unfortunately, all three burned down in 1886.

By the 1870's, the interior was beginning to fill up with settlers and the Provincial Government became concerned over education for the children. A report in 1871 recommended that a boarding school for the district be built at Kamloops. However, Charles Semlin's political influence secured this school for Cache Creek, his own home.

James Campbell and Philip Parke jointly donated 25 acres for the school, which opened in June of 1874 with 18 initial students. The first teacher, J.T. Jones, resigned in 1876 to take up ranching. He was tragically killed in 1882 when a cargo of dynamite he was carrying for the CPR exploded on Jackass Mountain. The second teacher, Archibald Irwin, and his wife Eleanor were fired in 1877 after a scandal erupted over inadequately locked doors between the girls' and boys' dormitories.

The next principal and teacher was Thomas Le Duc, and the matron in charge of the dormitories was Mrs. Catherine Schubert, famous as the only female member of the 1862 Overlander party. Her daughter, Rose, born at Kamloops in 1862 and the first white child born in the region, eventually married Le Duc. The school was well run by Le Duc and both he and Mrs. Schubert were highly regarded by students and parents alike.

As more schools opened in the interior, the enrollment dwindled until the school was finally closed in 1890. Though the vast majority of the students were worthy citizens, two of the alumni were Archie McLean and Alex Hare, murderers of Government Agent John Ussher in 1879.

Cache Creek remained an important station on the Cariboo Road through the 1870's and most of the 1880's. In 1871, the survey party of the Canadian Pacific Railway passed through Cache Creek, or "Cash Creek" as one of the men misspelled it in his journal.

The railway was eventually to reduce the town to relative unimportance. After Ashcroft was chosen as the railhead for the Cariboo Road in 1885, Cache Creek declined. People no longer transferred there for Kamloops and the Okanagan, but caught the train at Ashcroft. Cache Creek as a town had to wait for the era of mass automobile traffic after World War II.