We’ve already seen how Yale boomed after the Cariboo Wagon Road was driven north from the town in 1862. As the last place to purchase goods and supplies before beginning the long trek north, it was a hub of business, with many willing entrepreneurs prepared to set up shop and offer anything that could conceivably be needed.
Businesses in the town included, of course, the headquarters of the BX Express (until 1886) and related establishments, such as saddleries and blacksmiths. There were hotels, restaurants, bakeries, and saloons, a post office and banks, boot and shoemakers, tailors and milliners, pharmacies, barbers, carpenters and furniture makers, butchers, florists, watchmakers, barristers, and general merchants who sold a wide array of goods such as groceries, clothing, tools, and anything else that miners and settlers could possibly need.
The first general store in Yale had been established in 1858, not long after the start of the Fraser River gold rush. It was operated by the Oppenheimer brothers, who had all been born in Bavaria and then emigrated to the United States. Their father was a merchant, so it perhaps isn’t surprising that the brothers continued this tradition in their new country.
Charles Oppenheimer was the first to arrive in Yale, where he accurately assessed the need for a general store. He was soon joined by his brothers Meyer, Godfrey, David, and Isaac, and they established a store on Front Street. It was not only a successful business from a financial point of view; it soon became a popular gathering place, particularly in winter, when miners and prospectors waiting for the spring thaw would congregate in Yale.
The diversity of goods available in general stores can be seen in a receipt from May 11, 1876 from the Oppenheimers’ Yale establishment. One William Sterling, a trader in Germansen Creek, purchased goods which included rice, dried apples, plums, oatmeal, barley, candles, brandy, soap, lard, condensed milk, onions, matches, bacon and other items.
By 1859 the brothers had established stores in Fort Hope and Lytton, and following the discovery of gold in Barkerville in 1862 they established a store there, which soon became the centre of the town before being destroyed by fire in 1868, which cost the brothers $100,000. Undeterred, the brothers quickly rebuilt the store on an even grander scale.
That fire was, however, a taste of things to come in Yale, which suffered its own devastating fires in 1874 and 1881. The Oppenheimers’ store suffered minor damage to a lock on the store’s safe in 1874, and the brothers built a brick warehouse following the event. They also erected a fire wall, and David was made captain of the Yale fire brigade.
After the 1881 fire their brick warehouse was almost the only structure left intact on the block, and the brothers decided to close the Yale store. David and Isaac moved to what is now Vancouver, where in 1885 they established the first wholesale grocery store in the burgeoning town. Both men promoted Vancouver as the Pacific terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, then in the process of being built, and both served on Vancouver city council in 1887, the year after Vancouver was incorporated.
David went on to become the mayor of Vancouver, serving in that position for four one-year terms from 1888 to 1891. He established many institutions and much of Vancouver’s infrastructure, earning himself the name “the father of Vancouver”. Oppenheimer Park in the Downtown Eastside is named after him, and he is also commemorated in a statue at the entrance to Stanley Park, which was established while he was mayor.
Another successful businessman in early Yale, who also established a chain of stores throughout the province, was Lee Chong, who is responsible for the only remaining piece of the town’s once-thriving Chinese business section. He came to British Columbia during the gold rush and established stores in communities that were most impacted by the arrival of miners: by 1868 he had stores in Yale, Lillooet, Quesnelle Forks, and Barkerville.
The name of the stores was Kwong Lee, which translates to “expansive profit”. Like the Oppenheimers’ stores, Lee Chong’s sold a wide variety of goods, including mining equipment, food items, shoes and clothing, and even opium. The merchant also signalled his desire to stay and make a new life in British Columbia by bringing his wife from China to live with him, unlike many Chinese emigrants who aimed to make enough money to return to China and their families in due course.
The Kwong Lee stores were affected by fire in several communities, including the 1868 Barkerville fire, a fire in Quesnelle Mouth in 1869 that cost the lives of 10 employees, and the 1871 Yale fire. It was this last fire that persuaded Lee Chong to construct a number of stone vaults in Yale, designed to store and protect his valuables from fire. It is likely that he also charged others a fee to make use of the vaults, which were built of mortared river stone, with walls that ranged from 12 to 24 inches thick. A steel door gave entrance to the vaults. Much weathered by time, they still remain, a reminder of Yale’s Chinatown.
Thus it was that, despite fires, Yale continued to thrive after the establishment of the Cariboo Wagon Road. The decline of gold mining could have spelled disaster, but the rich farm and ranch lands of the Interior and Cariboo were attracting new settlers, and the abundant natural resources of the province were also drawing attention. New communities were springing up throughout the province, and people needed, more than ever, to get there and transport goods to and from them. The Cariboo Wagon Road was the only game in town; until British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871, and the Federal government needed to make good on its promise of a transportation route linking B.C. with the rest of Canada.
Initially, that route had been proposed as a wagon road, but suddenly there was another option: the iron horse. We’ll look at how the railway affected Yale in the next instalment.
editorial@accjournal.ca
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