A BRIEF HISTORY
Greenwood, the smallest city in Canada with a population of 665 persons (2016), is nestled in a valley beneath Jubilee Mountain in the region of Boundary Country of southern British Columbia. Located between Midway and Grand Forks, it is also one of the smallest cities covering only 2.52 kilometres.
Like many towns and cities across Canada, Greenwood’s beginnings can be traced to mining activities. In 1891, Richard Thompson and William McCormick discovered the Mother Lode Mine of copper, gold, and silver in Deadwood, just three kilometres west of the city. Named in 1895 after the Greenwood mining camp in Colorado by merchant Robert Wood, it became a bustling community with a general store, hotels, assay offices, an opera house, and many other establishments before becoming incorporated as a city on July 12, 1897. By 1899, Greenwood's population reached an historical high of 3,000, and the city was now accessible from the east by the Columbia and Western Railway. Despite the fire in the same year that destroyed several businesses, Greenwood continued to thrive. In 1901, the New York based British Columbia Copper Company established its smelter operation to service the Mother Lode Mine and surrounding ones, employing up to 450 men. A bustling city with a courthouse, one hundred businesses and two newspapers, Greenwood also became the seat of government for the Boundary.
Photo credit McCord Museum - Notman photographic archives
View looking north up South Copper Street (now BC Highway 3, Crowsnest Highway) into the 300-block from the intersection at Veterans Lane.
The prosperity of Greenwood was brief. By 1910, its population had dwindled to 1,500 and continued to decline with the permanent closure of the BC Copper Company in 1919 due to the dramatic fall in global copper prices and demand. The landmark of a 36 metre (121 ft) smokestack and slag pile remain today at Lotzkar Park as a reminder of the past. The city is currently seeking funding for its preservation and rehabilitation project that includes the development of this site into a tourist destination.
By 1941, Greenwood was home to only 363 residents, a number that continued to decline. By the time the Nikkei arrived in 1942, it is estimated to have been 200, but experienced a resurgence with the forced removal of persons of Japanese origin from the 100-mile protected zone off the province’s coast. The city became the first internment site of approximately 1,200 Nikkei who were housed in vacant hotels, buildings, and houses. In response to the Canadian government’s order of August 4, 1944 in which Japanese Canadians had to either apply for deportation to Japan or to move east of the Rockies, it is estimated that a large percentage of them chose to remain after the city’s closure as an internment site in 1945. Eventually most of them left Greenwood, and today approximately 20 to 30 residents of Japanese descent live here. On July 29, 2018, an estimated 200 people joined together at the Nikkei Legacy Park in Greenwood to remember the internment of the Nikkei through the unveiling of the family plaques and the Ministry of Transportation Greenwood Internment Cluster Legacy Sign.
The smallest city in Canada never again experienced the prosperity of its pre-World War I days. It continues to remain a resilient community despite its economic hardships. Today Greenwood relies on logging as its primary industry as well as its tourism and small business activities, and serves as the gateway to the Trans Canada Trail that was originally the Columbia and Western Railway. In 1998, the city became the principal site for the filming of the movie, Snow Falling on Cedars, and gained international recognition in 2012 for the best water in the world at the 22nd Annual Berkley Springs International Water Tasting competition.
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