In 1895, the first provincial policeman was posted here and in 1897 Canada Customs arrived.

Midway stands approximately midway between the Rockies and the Pacific. Midway stands somewhere near mid-point on the old Dewdney Trail, from its beginning at Hope to its terminus at Wild Horse Creek, near Fort Steele.ģ. Midway was located approximately midway between Penticton and Marcus, Washington, then its nearest railway point.Ģ. There are a number of reasons though that made Midway a suitable name:ġ. He is said to have taken the name from the Midway Plaisance at the Chicago’s World Fair of 1893. Adams of Montreal (one of the owners of the townsite) as the original name was too similar to the nearby smelter town of Boundary Falls. The new town’s original name, Boundary City, was changed in 1894 to Midway by Capt. Henry Nicholson, and by 1889 Louis Eholt owned a thriving ranch on what is now the town site of Midway, known then as the Eholts.Ī Montreal-based company bought the site for a smelter in 1892, but that plan fell though, and a year later the town site was plotted. He dispatched an energetic young engineer named Edgar Dewdney who hacked out a four-foot-wide road from Hope to Rock Creek in 1860 then with the discovery of gold at Wild Horse Creek in the Kootenays, Dewdney again tackled the task and pushed the Dewdney Trail on through the Midway Valley in the spring of 1865.īy 1884, Midway had it’s first resident, a Mr. When gold was discovered at Rock Creek in 1859, and US miners came swarming into the region, Governor Douglas saw that an east-west route through the interior was vital for maintaining British control. But traffic and trade followed the river valleys north and south. claimed this area and all of BC north to 54 degrees until the treaty of 1846 set the 49th parallel as the border. Until then, it had been a traditional hunting ground and place for gathering the medicinal rock rose roots. In the 1800’s, fur traders, prospectors, and white settlers began moving though this sun-drenched valley.

Rail of war hacked