Today Paulson is a bridge, a backroad, and a highway, but originally it was a siding on the Columbia and Western Railway.
The border crossing southwest of Rossland was named for Archibald Neil Paterson (1865-1935).
The Slocan Valley community of Passmore has a confusing naming history, including two or three possible namesakes.
Oro, which means gold in Italian and Spanish, was a townsite at the junction of Lemon and Crusader Creeks in the Slocan Valley.
Ootischenia is one of two Doukhobor place names that remain widely used in West Kootenay.
Niagara was a railway boom town in the Boundary at the confluence of Fisherman Creek and the North Fork of the Kettle River.
New Denver was formerly called Eldorado. And before that, it was briefly called Slocan City.
Nelway is a contraction of “Nelson and Spokane highway,” though some speculate it might be derived from “Nelson and Fort Sheppard Railway.”
Thanks to Nelson, BC, a town in Washington state named Nelson was rechristened Danville.
Earlier in this series we saw that Nelson’s Fairview neighbourhood was originally called Salisbury. It also had three other names.
BC Lt.-Gov. Hugh Nelson never saw the town that was named after him, although he was encouraged to buy lots there.
By 1888, the area around the Silver King mine was known as Hall’s Camp while two names were proposed for the infant town on Kootenay Lake.
Nelson was named after BC Lt.-Gov. Hugh Nelson (1830-93), but had several other names first.
Needles, the western terminal of the Lower Arrow Lake ferry, was formerly known as The Needles and was first mentioned in 1895.
Nashville, also known as Nashville City and Nashton, was a phantom town at the confluence of the Kaslo River and its south fork.
In the 1980s and mid-2000s, there were movements afoot to change the name of Nakusp to Nakusp Hot Springs.
Montrose was named for a place in Scotland, but its origin isn’t completely straightforward.
Last week we started looking at Montgomery, Monte Carlo, and Waterloo, short-lived mining towns on the east side of the Columbia River.
Montgomery, Monte Carlo, and Waterloo Landing were short-lived mining towns on the east side of the Columbia River.
Mirror Lake was first mentioned in the Nelson Miner of March 7, 1896, in connection with the first curling bonspiel in the Kootenays.
