Nearby Cities: Mission
Mission History
In 1861, Father Fouquet, a young Oblate Priest from France, chose the site for St. Mary's Indian Residential School just east of the present downtown core of Mission. The mission's grist mill and post office became a community gathering centre. Sternwheelers worked the Fraser until the turn of the century, able to maneuver in very shallow water (by 1920, though, they were used mainly for pleasure excursions). When the Canadian Pacific Railway came in 1883, the Oblates rebuilt their school on the plateau above the original site. When the Fraser River bridge was built in 1891, Mission was connected to communities on the south shore. Silverdale was settled by mostly Italian settlers, Silverhill by Swedish, while Hatzic Prairie was a mostly French-speaking settlers.
In 1891, real estate broker James Welton Horne, foresaw a boomtown, purchased a large tract of land by the bridge and railway line, cleared it, and surveyed streets for a townsite, even building stores, offices, and a hotel for prospective buyers. The area from the Stave River to Hatzic Lake was incorporated in 1892 as the Municipality of Mission (the year of the Great Flood). The area's farms were ideal for fruits and vegetables and everyone, and in 1895, the area had its first annual Agricultural Fair. The forests provided railway ties, hydro poles, shakes and shingles. The area's first newspaper, the Mission City News began publishing in 1893. Canada's first and only train robbery took place in Mission in 1904.
In 1910 the fast-growing town got a new train station, and in 1912, the Stave Falls Dam and electric plant brought industrialization to the area. Mission became the centre of the area's fruit packing and canning operations. Telephone service began in 1907 with a line running from Mission to Hatzic, was taken over by B.C. Telephone in 1929. In 1910, the first automobile arrived in Mission, and by 1916 the Dewdney Trunk had reached Deroche. In 1927, the CPR bridge over the Fraser was planked for car traffic, eliminating long ferry waits, and in 1929 Mission's Main Street (now First Avenue) was paved. By 1930, the Lougheed highway connected all communities on the North Bank of the Fraser.
In 1948 the Fraser River broke through the dykes flooding the entire valley and paralyzing the community until the water subsided. That same year the Municipal Forest Reserve was organized and a forestry program was started in the schools. Westminster Abbey was built on the hill overlooking Hatzic in 1954.
Community Map
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