50 miles from Chilliwack

In 1858 the Fraser River had a huge gold rush at Yale where the river roars out of the canyon starts a less turbulent flow into the fraser valley.

Yale was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company and named after James Murray Yale. At the peak of the gold rush, it was reputed to be the largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco and also known for vice, violence and lawlessness.
Steamers could make it to from New westminster to Yale( about 100 miles), Its maximum population during the gold rush was 15,000 normal 5-8,000.
Yale is the start of the Cariboo Wagon Road , built in the early 1860s. In 1870s an overland route to Tale from N W was built ....Our main Old Yale rd. running through Chilliwack is Old Yale Rd. Yale prospered for another twenty five years after the gold rush. Construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (1885) overcame the town's old commercial core and waterfront . After CP completion the population was greatly reduced and progressively afterwards.
Not much of the gold rush era Yale survives, as the docks vanished long ago and the railway runs down the main street of what had been town. Now there is a couple of stores, restaurants and a few motels and other services, as well as gas stations and automotive repair and rescue outfits. Most of today's population are members of First Nation.

Construction of the railway meant the destruction of the Cariboo Wagon Road,. A new highway north from Yale was not built until the Cariboo Highway in 1922, and upgraded to the Trans-Canada Highway in 1960.