Prince George was officially incorporated as a town 109 years ago today – March 6th, 1915.
We are 109! Today marks the 109th anniversary of the incorporation of the #CityofPG. But the history of this place is much, much older than that! Did you know that the Lheidli T'enneh have lived in our area for at least 9,000 years?
Learn more: https://t.co/XvcK1AsCaA pic.twitter.com/pbPiH3z2ZW
— City of Prince George (@CityofPG) March 6, 2024
What started as a trading post on the river with a few thousand people is now one of the larger municipalities in British Columbia and northern Canada as a whole.
“[The city] has changed tremendously,” Dr. George Davison, the Chair of the Prince George Heritage Commission, told My PG Now. “It started as a waypoint at the junction of the Nechako and Fraser Rivers.”
“It became a fur trade post under the Northwest Company and then the Hudson Bay Company, and stayed that way for 100 years before the railway came through in the early 1900s,” he explained.
“That put it on the map with connection east and west, not south,” Davison added, saying the north-south Pacific Great Eastern railway did not come to Prince George until the 1950s.
“It was nicknamed ‘Prince George, eventually,'” he said with a small laugh. “It was chartered just before World War 1, got to Quesnel in 1921, and then sat there for another 30 years.”
109 years ago there were three towns in what we now know as Prince George all competing for official incorporation.
- South Fort George, the first trading post town on the river
- Central Fort George, located roughly where Spruceland Mall is now, was a real estate promotion created by a man named George Hammond
- and the railway company that set up its site around the railroad.
According to Davison, the railway town “bumped both [forts] out of the way and kicked the First Nations off their reserve at the junction of the rivers, they wanted the town where it is now.”
To the dismay of the others, Grand Trunk won the incorporation – Davison said it took another 60 years for South Fort George to be officially included in the city.
This incorporation took place during the First World War, Davison said the area saw very little growth in the 20s and 30s, and that those decades “were not very good” for the young town.
What may come as a surprise to some, it was the Second World War that Davison says put Prince George on the map when the 6th and 8th reserve divisions arrived.
“There were about 2,000 people here at that point,” he said. “Then 10,000 troops arrived in town.”
“The camp was built near where the college is now. It started as bell tents for thousands of men, an artillery range was facing Cranbrook Hill where Ginter’s place was built after.”
Some of the construction around what is now the CN Centre got its start in this time, and Davison said many of the warehouses along First Avenue were first built to hold army equipment.
Davison said another range was built near where the airport is now towards Tabor Mountain.
He said a kid was severely injured and killed after he found an unexploded mortar shell out that direction in the early 50s.
More infrastructure started to sprout up around Prince George with the military influx, including the start of logging.
“The sawmills were built between here and McBride, and of course in the 60s pulp mills were a further expansion of the city,” Davison said. “Then the College and University sort of finished Prince George off.”
“It has gone from a sleepy, dusty little railway town of 2,000 people to 80-some thousand now.”
The Heritage Commission has a registry of heritage buildings which have remained since the early days of Prince George, but Davison says there are not many left.
“The First Nations log houses that were down by Lheidli T’enneh memorial park were all burned and the railway and government built them a new town out in Shelly,” he said, as an example.
Many other mainstay buildings, like the Civic Centre and City Hall, have been torn down and rebuilt over the years.
Davison said the original Civic Centre was where the Canfor Leisure Pool is located now, which was also Mr. PG’s first home when he was built in the 50’s.
“The old City Hall was in the same spot the new City Hall was built,” he added.
According to the City, the fist City Hall was built in 1918 for $8,500 – roughly $121,000 today, and was torn down in 1966 to be replaced with our current city hall.
The city’s records say “The building’s approach featured a wooden footbridge and had long steps that occasionally served as a staging area for bands and entertainment. A gully also ran in front of the old City Hall (where the Cenotaph now stands) that separated it from George Street.”
Prince George’s old Fire Hall was on George Street before it burned down in the 40’s.
Prior to it becoming a Fire Hall, Davison said it was an entertainment hall for 20 years which housed Prince George’s first radio station.
What comes next for the city remains to be seen.
“Our livelihood relies on resource development… the resource economy is a toilet seat economy, because it is always going up and down,” Davison said. “People are always going to find resources up in the north but mines, pipelines – I’m not sure there is much more infrastructure that is going to be built.”
However, within the city, he said “there is a lot of building going on, new subdivisions here and there. There is continued growth and it will continue to be a northern center – the expansion of the hospital is testament to that.”
As an aside, Davison mentioned the Heritage Commission is still in a recovery phase from the pandemic, and they are trying to “re-create the wheel.”
He said one project they have on the go is refurbishing any of the 60 heritage signs and plaques across Prince George that may need it, some of which have not been formally looked at in years, and working with the Lheidli T’enneh and Prince George Public Library to update some of these signs to be better reflective of the city and region’s past.
Davison said the Commission is also looking to fill empty member positions, and anyone interested can apply here.
According to the city’s website, there are three empty one year positions, and four empty two year positions.
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
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