Summerland Museum looks back at Canadian Pacific Railway local meet with President – Penticton News

The Summerland Museum & Archives Society told a story about an iconic time in the district’s history, right around the turn of the 20th century.

A look back at the growth of the Canadian Pacific Railway begins with the museum’s photograph, believed to be dated September 22, 1904.

According to the museum, Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, the CPR President, is meeting with many CPR executives and investors who had come to Summerland for the annual railroad inspection.

“It shows Summerland’s welcome party at the lakefront Summerland Hotel, with some of Canada’s top business leaders posing in front of the hotel,” they wrote in their post.

“Summerland has an intriguing connection to some of Canada’s richest men of the period.”

Shaughnessy wanted to develop land in inland British Columbia to grow crops for the growing transportation and hotel chain, CPR.

The CPR Executive Council had selected the area around Trout Creek in present-day Summerland as a potential development area in 1900.

In August 1902, Shaughnessy and his company, the Summerland Syndicate, purchased George Barclay’s 1,400-acre Trout Creek Ranch.

“The plan was to plant orchards on this land, the fruit of which would then be bought by the company CPR.”

Shaughnessy’s efforts to attract prosperity to the region were not in vain, as he managed to persuade many of his friends and business associates from across Canada to invest in real estate, and the tradition of growing fruit in Summerland was established.

In Summerland businessmen such as Sir Edmond Osler (the national president of the Dominion Bank), RB Angus (co-founder of the CPR), Sir Edward Clouston (the general manager of the Bank of Montreal and president of the Canadian Bankers Association), and Charles Hosmer (a Montreal tycoon) are all investing in orchards in the region.

“It was this influx of some of Canada’s richest men into the Prairie Valley in particular that led to the valley becoming known as Millionaires’ Row,” the museum added.

The Summerland Museum & Archives Society shares photos and information from their archives on their social media each week for Thursday’s review can be found online here.