Before the provincial government established an office in the district of Fort George, men looking to pre-empt land in the area faced a long and daunting process. Applicants were required to correspond with government agents working in offices hundreds of miles away, relying on letters carried by sternwheeler, stagecoach and dogsled to complete the multi-step…
The roar from the skies that afternoon must have been deafening. At 1 p.m. on Thursday March 27, 1941, eight U.S. Army bombers rumbled into Prince George and circled the town, landing one by one on the municipal airfield. The Douglas B-18 Bolo bombers and their combined crew of 37 American airmen were travelling from Tacoma,…
One year was all it took for the town of Prince George to establish itself as a thriving business centre in the Fort George area. The series of photos below shows the development of George Street from March 1914 to March 1915 (with a photo from October 1913 also provided for reference purposes). All photos…
The Prince George Citizen might reasonably claim that its “newspaper empire” began 91 years ago this week. On March 13, 1923, the Citizen announced a merger with its last remaining newspaper rival, the Leader. The amalgamation marked the end of a 13-year stretch in which no less than seven different newspapers — each championing a particular set of regional…
Prince George was incorporated as a municipality almost one hundred years ago today, on Saturday March 6, 1915. The event was a milestone that almost didn’t happen, given the heated political wrangling that enveloped the subject from the get-go. At issue was the involvement (and equitable representation) of the area’s three distinct townships — South…
During the last week of February, 1915, citizens of Prince George and other communities along the one-year-old Grand Trunk Pacific rail line from Edmonton to Prince Rupert received welcome news: mail cars would now be a regular part of all trains running east and west, a development that meant faster, more reliable mail service to…
The Road Home 