Smithers, British Columbia

Smithers was chosen as a key divisional point for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in British Columbia, even though the developers initially looked at other central spots near Aldermere. The speculators had even tried to promote a future new city at Hubert, east of Telkwa, but the railway had already decided on this location.

The railway was trying to avoid sharing land sale profits with those speculators, so they picked this swampy ground west of Telkwa, at the foot of Hudson Bay Mountain. They named the new headquarters Smithers, after Sir Alfred Smithers, the chairman of the GTP board. The Railway Commission approved this station site in March 1913. Surveying started in April, and by August, 100 of the 160 acres for the town site were cleared. The railyards, also 160 acres, were cleared by September. The railhead reached here in July, and the first passenger train came through in October of that year.

Even though they dug ditches for drainage, the subsoil here was layers of quicksand and clay, which meant they had to drive piles for building foundations. People complained to the GTP about the swampy road conditions, but nothing was done. The temporary train station built in 1915 was replaced in 1919 with a new building. For many decades, the railway was the main employer, but by the 1950s, the number of employees started to decrease. In 1994, the Smithers Community Services Association bought the station building.

The original street layout was designed by professional landscape architects to accommodate up to 10,000 people, and the town mostly followed this plan for decades. However, the original design didn't account for the topography or soil conditions, so some lots on slopes, near creeks, or in flood plains couldn't be developed. Main Street was the commercial heart, with the train station and Alfred Park at one end and Central Park at the other, which is now the intersection with Highway 16. Residential areas spread out from there. In 1972, Main Street adopted an alpine theme.

By 1914, Smithers had two newspapers, two banks, three churches, a three-story hotel, stores, a telephone system, and electricity. After the Telkwa fire in 1914, which destroyed 13 downtown buildings, many businesses moved here. The large GTP payroll helped attract more settlers and businesses. Initial hopes were for a population of 5,000 by 1915, but that wasn't reached until 1991. The population actually fell during World War I, to 350 in 1918, before rising to 520 by 1920.

The post office was finished, and J. Mason Adams was the first postmaster from 1913 to 1914. A school was established in April 1914, with Miss Mary K. Downey as the first teacher, and a permanent building replaced the temporary one in the Methodist Church in 1915. In 1920, a two-story hospital with 15 beds opened. Smithers became the first incorporated village in British Columbia in 1921.