Barkerville, British Columbia
| Barkerville National Historic Site of Canada Lieu historique national du Canada du Barkerville |
|
|---|---|
 Lieu patrimonial du Canada |
|
| Recognized since | June 4, 1924 |
| Type | National Historic Site |
| ID | 14309 |
| place | Bakerville |
| Coordinates | 53 ° 4 ′ 0 ″ N , 121 ° 31 ′ 3 ″ W |
| Recognized by | Government of Canada |
| Approved by | Historic Sites and Monuments Act |
| Entry Canadian List of Monuments | |
Barkerville was the capital of the Cariboo gold rush in British Columbia, Canada , from 1863 . It is located in the Quesnel Highlands near the Cariboo Mountains , around 80 km east of Quesnel and declared a National Historic Site in 1924 .
The place was named after the English gold prospector Billy Barker , who struck gold here in 1862. Four decades later, the place, which at times had more than 5,000 inhabitants, was a ghost town . It has been restored and its history researched since 1958.
history
Barkerville emerged as a gold rush town. After Billy Barker (1817-1894) was one of the first prospectors to find gold in the Cariboo area , a number of new places arose such as Barkerville, Keithley Creek, Quesnel Forks, Antler, Richfield, Fort Alexandria and Horsefly . The area known as Cariboo attracted many prospectors, many of whom had followed the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush three years earlier . They moved further north, but with more and more new gold discoveries the reputation of the area reached Europe, and numerous men made their way there.
Barkerville became the largest town north of San Francisco and west of Chicago . Barker's gold find - his claim was so productive that it yielded 37,500 ounces of gold - triggered the immigration of thousands of adventurers within a few weeks.
The remoteness of the area and the skyrocketing demand caused the prices of food and equipment to skyrocket. It was only with the construction of the Cariboo Road (also called Cariboo Wagon Road or Great North Road ), a cart track initiated by Governor James Douglas in 1861, and which was completed in 1865, that goods came into the town in sufficient quantities so that prices rose again normalized. The Hudson's Bay Company , which at the time was still a major power in what would later become western Canada, initially feared that the anticipated onslaught of Americans could lead to a later annexation of the entire area, just as the company did its forts in 1849 lost in Washington and Oregon . This time only a few Americans were there because most of them returned to their homeland, which was torn by the civil war .
At first the place consisted only of tents and simple huts, but the population rose to over 5,000. Shops were opened to meet the basic needs, restaurants, 20 saloons alone , a theater (the Theater Royal ) and brothels , a daily newspaper soon appeared and a literary society, the Cariboo Literary Society and a Masonic lodge emerged.
The government made gold mining dependent on a license. There was a police force and a court, where Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie was nicknamed "the hanging judge". He did not shy away from death sentences or forced labor and, to the horror of some Californians, took the statements of Indians and Chinese as seriously as anyone else.
On September 16, 1868, numerous wooden houses in the city were destroyed by fire, but 90 buildings were rebuilt within six weeks. Now the narrow Main Street, the main street, was widened, sidewalks were built , and in 1880 the first school with 13 students was built.
When the gold rush ended, most of the residents left the city. At the same time, Chinese immigrated , the number of whom in the Cariboo area rose from two to three hundred to 1,100 to 1,200 between 1881 and 1884, according to a statement by local representative Charles Wilson. They acquired claims and, despite the use of force, prevailed against the resistance of the whites. Chinese companies such as Kwong Lee Company became indispensable in the business area. The Chinese community was extremely thrifty, the men lived in confined spaces, and people helped each other by founding non-profit organizations. The municipality resolved legal disputes internally without taking the provincial jurisdiction to claim. The hardworking and thrifty Chinese often adopted claims that Europeans had already given up. However, they could not stop the population decline.
A brief revival caused the global economic crisis with its sharply rising gold prices , which again lured gold seekers to Barkerville.
In 1958, the provincial government decided to restore the almost abandoned site and to review the history of each individual house. The few residents left the place, z. Some with government support, and moved to New Barkerville during the restoration work . In addition to the historic site, the "Barkerville Historic Town" was created, where scientists continue to work on historical research into the neighboring ghost town.
See also
Web links
- Barkerville ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
- Barkerville Historic Town
- The Cariboo Sentinel - Barkerville Now & Then
- Biography of William Barker
- Eyewitness account of the town fire of 1868
- Pauline Johnson: The Cariboo Trail
- Barkerville city directory, population register from 1887
Remarks
- ^ Barkerville National Historic Site . In: Canadian Register of Historic Places , accessed July 21, 2012.
- ↑ A look at one of the streets in Barkerville (1869) can be found here ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Brief History , Barkerville Web site.
- ↑ An example can be found here: Barkerville, Williams Creek, Cariboo. Murderer wants hang .
- ^ Frederic Dally: The Great Fire of Barkerville - 1868. An account of the destruction by fire of the town of Barkerville .
- ↑ Canada. Commission royale sur l'immigration chinoise: Rapport sur l'immigration chinoise rapport et témoignages, July 1884, pp. 65f.
