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Historic trail has gone missing. Can you help find it?

The Granite Creek Preservation Society is seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing trail.
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During the gold rush, Granite Creek was the third largest city in British Columbia

The Granite Creek Preservation Society is seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing trail.

The Bromley Trail, used during the 1885 Granite Creek Gold Rush, has been lost over time. It was probably last traversed in its entirety around 1918.

The Bromley Trail was a short cut to the Granite Creek town site and was described as very narrow and steep. It was approximately 15 miles long. The Granite Creek Preservation Society would also like to know the exact location of the old Bromley Ranch Roadhouse, which was the starting point for the trail. This stopping point for prospectors was somewhere near where the Dewdney Trail crossed Bromley Creek, south of Princeton.

Lori Weissbach proved to have great sleuthing skills when she learned the location of the Bromley Ranch. It is a huge piece of property so we still hope to find exactly where on the land the roadhouse was located and, of course, we still need to know the location of the actual Bromley Trail to Granite Creek.

Bromley Ranch was on Lot 406 ODYD (Osoyoos District/Yale District). Lori managed to locate the Pre-Emption from 1888 for John Hatten Bromley. Lot 406 is south of what is the Maynard Ranch today. We even have some genealogy on the Bromley family now.

Hopefully there will be someone else who might have information of the trail location and can pinpoint where on Lot 406 (it is a very large parcel of land) the Bromley Roadhouse was located.

While John Chance is credited for having discovered Granite Creek, some believe that John Bromley, Mike Sullivan, and William Briggs were the actual discoverers. It is said that in the fall of 1884 they collected gold from Granite and showed John Allison at his store near Princeton. They couldn’t stake the claim due to flooding and planned to do so in the spring. John Chance beat them too it and got his claim staked first so he is credited as the discoverer of Granite Creek. It is not known who was there first but I’d say it was a close race.

The GCPS is hoping if we can find it, perhaps we can have a drone fly over it and make a video of the trip and then post that online. Much of the trail is now probably covered with logging roads, but we are hoping to discover some virgin sections that would make for nice, short hikes.

If you have any information regarding this Trail and/or Roadhouse, including old photographs or maps, please contact the Granite Creek Preservation Society at: info@granitecreekbc.ca.



Andrea DeMeer

About the Author: Andrea DeMeer

Andrea is the publisher of the Similkameen Spotlight.
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