quite a story

click pix to enlarge

Chilliwack's first businesses were located at Chilliwack Landing, located at the foot of Wellington Avenue on the Fraser River. Beginning in 1858, at the time of the Fraser River gold rush, Chilliwack Landing was where the riverboats landed and served a small farming community growing nearby. It just was not a big enough area.....so about 1890 they moved a church from the top end of Harrison lake (Port Douglas) and then plopped it down where the Landing road connected with the new Yale road.
Now that must be quite a story.....I have to find out more about that, but I have read somewhere that it was moved on large canoes and pushed and pulled it to Five Corners.... okay....40 miles down the Harrison Lake ....across the Fraser River and then about 5 miles overland.....wow.....this became St. Thomas' Church. Soon after, a blacksmith shop, public school, several houses, a flourmill, a general store and McKeever's Hotel clustered around the church. This section of Chilliwack remains the commercial heart of the community....Five Corners.

In 1909 it was then moved about 4 blocks to its present location...Gore and Princess Ave.

The new court house is at Five Corners now.

The new Yale road to the interior shut down the water route up the Harrison Lake and Port Douglas became a ghost town , apparently there no signs of a town there at all now.