A HOTEL REMEMBERS

by Sadie Siroy

PART 2

     The next decade from 1865 to 1875 saw our country become a Dominion and the gold mines become a community of over five hundred people.  There would be some ninety dwellings, boarding houses, hotels, stores, freight coaches going twice daily from the station to the mines, a telegraph line strung from the station along trees to a small telegraph office in the mines.  A big hall was built and on its opening night there were two hundred and fourteen couples on its floor.  A school and church were surrounded by mining crushers and mills mortaring the gold.  So many were the mine claims and people on them that the mining office gave up trying to keep track of them all.