A recently uncovered Vancouver Sun newspaper article established some helpful corroboration of details documented in the Burke and Widgeon – A History (Volume One) narrative about the opening of the Silver Valley Post Office and the Silver Valley School (book pages 282 through 297).

This article confirms the book’s assertion that the Silver Valley Post Office opened on June 01, 1914.  It reported that on May 12, 1914, the local Member of Parliament had committed to the post office’s imminent opening as well as the unofficial announcement that its first postmaster would be Alvin B. Olmstead, who was reported to have had the contract for carrying the mail from the Pitt River Bridge up to the Silver Valley Post Office for further distribution.

Significantly, the article also stated that a schoolhouse was also to be built in Silver Valley that summer, on an acre of land donated by Olmsted, which definitively confirms the school’s location as outlined on Volume One’s page 289.  Nice to see this additional corroboration!

L