The Pristine Land

In the mid-1800s, the Okanagan Valley was a pristine land with few settlers in the area. The land was ripe for development. However, the means of transportation in the area were very limited. There was the Hudson’s Bay Fur Brigade Trail running through the valley, and there were many First Nations trails, but these trails were quite basic. The population of the Okanagan Valley could not grow very easily without a good transportation system. At the end of the 1850s, pioneers began to settle in the Okanagan Valley. Starting with Father Pandosy in 1859, the settlers started to come, but what the valley needed was an entrepreneur to improve the transportation system. The man who came to the rescue was Thomas Dorling Shorts.

Early History Of Thomas Dorling Shorts

T.D. Shorts was born in Adolphustown, Ontario, in 1837. He was always an adventurous man. He went to the gold mines of California in 1857. He tried his luck at gold mining but was not very successful. He also tried farming and fruit growing in the western United States. These ventures also ended in failure. Since he did not strike it rich in California, he decided to come to British Columbia in 1870. In BC, he again attempted to earn a living by gold mining. He spent time in Omineca, Cassiar, and Skagit looking for the mother lode. Like so many other miners, Shorts made very little money in the gold rush.