The familiar Central Okanagan
landscape has a long and diverse history.
Originally settled by the Interior Salish people, the region’s plants,
animals and other resources provided the means for a unique cultural
tradition. In this setting, the Native people followed seasonal cycles
of food gathering, hunting and ceremonial life.
The seasonal cycles took
on a different focus when Catholic missionaries pre-empted land near
Mission Creek in 1860. Eventually their Mission became one of the
Valley’s largest mixed farm operations. Today, the Father Pandosy
Mission is a provincially recognized historic site.
Those early pioneer years
focused on an industry that fed the Cariboo gold miners and other
early settlers - cattle ranching.
The orcharding landscape
we recognize today began to take shape more than three decades after
Father Pandosy arrived. With a new rail spur line to Okanagan Landing
at the head of Okanagan Lake, the CPR sternwheeler made regular stops
at Kelowna, a brand new townsite laid out in 1892. With efficient
and reliable transportation in place, the Kelowna area started to
change. Between 1904 and 1914, thousands of acres of cattle range
and grain fields were shifted to irrigated orchards. In a decade the
Valley turned from brown to green.
The city of Kelowna was
incorporated in 1905 and very soon after that the main street, Bernard
Avenue, took on a new look. One by one the older wooden buildings
were torn down or moved to make way for new brick structures that
better reflected the town’s strengthening economy.
While orchards form an
important part of the economic base, pioneers experimented in earnest
with other crops. Perhaps the most promising of these was tobacco.
At one point the Kelowna area boasted vast fields of tobacco and the
industry gave birth to “Kelowna Pride” cut tobacco and cigars. Faced
with stiff competition from better situated growers in Ontario, the
Okanagan tobacco industry slowly died. Its only legacies today are
one or two tobacco barns and a large brick cigar factory in the 1200
block of Ellis Street.
Kelowna experienced moderate
growth through the two World Wars, but dramatic change was on the
way. That change came in the form of the Okanagan Lake floating bridge,
opened by Premier W.A.C. Bennett and Princess Margaret in 1958.
The pace of change for
the Central Okanagan was increased with the opening of the Coquihalla
Connector.
