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PLACE NAMES: Summit City and Summit Lake

William Haywood had great plans for his townsite near Eholt. They didn’t pan out.
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The first ad for the Half Way House at Summit Lake appeared in the Nakusp Ledge on Oct. 19, 1893.

One-hundred eighty-eighth in an alphabetical series on West Kootenay/Boundary place names

The Boundary ghost town of Summit City was five miles northeast of Phoenix and three miles south of Eholt on the CPR. It was closely associated with Oro Denoro, a prosperous mine with a namesake townsite that was adjacent to Summit City.

The mining camp the fledgling town belonged to was first mentioned in the Fairview Advance on May 3, 1894: “Mr. Schofield will continue development work on the Mountain Rose in the Summit camp …”

But the town didn’t become a going concern until 1899, when William C. Haywood organized the Summit Townsite Co. and applied for a liquor license for the Hotel Summit.

The Cascade Record of July 1, 1899 announced: “Work has commenced on clearing the new townsite of Summit, near the BC and Oro Denoro mines in Summit camp.”Summit was carved out of lots 1557 and 2005, but it’s not known who drew the plan or what it looked like.

The first time we see it referred to as Summit City is in a list of townsites published in the Greenwood Miner of Sept. 1, 1899.

In April 1900, William Haywood sold a quarter-interest in the townsite to Percy E. McMillan of Toronto for $25,000 (something like $730,000 in today’s figures). The Greenwood Miner explained: “Mr. McMillan became heavily interested in mining property in Summit camp last summer and was so well pleased with his holdings that he decided to increase them by the purchase of an interest in the townsite.”

The Grand Forks Gazette of May 14, 1900 further described the town: “Summit Camp embraces a sea of mountains drained by Boundary, Browns, and Fisherman creeks … It is 2,500 feet above the Kettle River Valley. True, its population scarcely exceeds 100 [but] there are three hotels, one saloon, four stores, a laundry …”

A post office application for Summit City was filed in early 1900, but inspector W.H. Dorman noted a petition had already been filed “under the name Oro or possibly Denoro.”

He added: “I understand that an effort is being made by the owners of the rival townsites to combine them into one town — if this is accomplished I will have no hesitation in recommending the establishment of a post office, but at present the post office is wanted more to boom a townsite than from actual necessity.”

Nevertheless, the Summit post office operated from June 1900 to February 1902.

The 1902 civic directory listed two hotels, one general store, several mining companies, a sawmill, and the Summit Water, Light, and Power Co. Ltd., of which William Haywood was also manager. By 1911, there was a long list of delinquent property owners, including Charles E. Tilley, Alex Miller, Bertram Miller, Charles Cummings, Samuel K. Green and J.L. Jarrell. Each owed back taxes on at least ten lots. By 1920, only one lot, owned by George McAuliffe, was in arrears.

There was also a Summit siding on the Nelson and Fort Sheppard Railway, between Hall Siding and Nelson, first mentioned in the Nelson Tribune on Dec. 14, 1893. It didn’t amount to much.

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