Guilford (railway point), British Columbia

Railway

Guilford, like Lindup to its northwest, and Bend to its southeast, was an original train station (1914) on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway^[1][2] (the Canadian National Railway after nationalization) (CNR). Guilford station was situated at Mile 65.6, Fraser Subdivision^[3] (about Mile 155 during the line’s construction). The chosen name, a surname of pre 7th century origins, derives either from the city of Guildford, or from residence at a ford where golden flowers grew.^[4] It was selected from the list prepared by Josiah Wedgwood (submitted at the request of William P. Hinton, the railway's general manager). Commonly claimed as an English place name,^[5] "Guildford" is established, but no such location with the different spelling appears to have existed in the United Kingdom. However an earldom was created,^[6][7] and the station name, like that of Guilford County, North Carolina may have come from a member of that nobility branch.

The town was situated about two miles northwest of the station, because sawmills required both river and railway access,^[8] but the station’s isolation made Penny station, the preferred option for passengers.^[9] In September 1913, the Sykes family travelled by construction train to the Guilford station location on track laid early that month.^[10] The family heading across the river, due south of this spot, Ada Sykes’ diary provides one of the earliest surviving references to Guilford's existence.^[11] In 1914, a landslide around Mile 66.5 (previously Mile 156), delayed passenger services by a day.^[12] Apart from a recluse, only the section (track maintenance) crew lived in the station vicinity.^[8]

Built in 1914, the standard-design Plan 100‐152 (Bohi’s Type E)^[13][14] station building was replaced with a converted freight shed in 1950. Although Bohi notes the demolition of the former in 1950 and the latter in 1968,^[15] it appears more likely that the CNR burned down the former in the early 1960s.^[8][16] A flag stop by the late 1950s,^[17] that status remained for scheduled passenger services into the later 1960s,^[18][19] and possibly continued as a way freight flag stop until that service ended in 1977.^[20][3][21]

In 1960, a speeder collided with a work train near Guilford, killing one of the two CNR riders.^[22][23] Two years later, a bull moose, which charged an eastbound 59-car freight train near Guilford, derailed the caboose. The incident delayed the westbound passenger train by four hours.^[24]

A new siding was added at Mile 66.1 in 1985.^[25]

Pioneer Logging & Sawmills

Operating at least since 1918,^[11] Gordon Bain's shingle and lath mill, recently purchased from A. H. Booth, was totally destroyed by fire in 1920.^[26] Trading as the Red Cedar Mill, their infrequent^[27] advertisements for cedar products became weekly^[28] during the fire sale. The district forester subsequently seized the fire-damaged equipment to settle unpaid timber royalties.^[29]

The narrow strip of accessible spruce forest bordering the railway that stretched some 100 miles east of Prince George was known as the East Line.^[30] A 1927 forest fire stretching between Longworth and Guilford inflicted limited timber losses.^[31] Months later, a logger struck by a falling tree in the vicinity of Guilford, succumbed to his injuries while aboard a freight train en route to hospital.^[32] A year later, a logger at the Melrose Camp near Guilford suffered fatal injuries.^[33][34] The Vick Brothers Lumber Co., known to have operated a 20,000-foot-daily capacity mill during 1928-29,^[35] closed during the Great Depression. At this time, Archie McLarty (McLary alternate spelling) had a 20-man crew producing 100 cedar poles per day in the vicinity.^[36] Fire destroyed 7,000 of these poles, valued at $30,000, stacked near the station.^[37]

Community

A store and mail collection point opened prior to 1920,^[38] however the latter was short-lived and recipients thereafter collected their mail from Penny.^[39] In 1945, the Guilford population comprised 47 family units,^[40] likely its peak. Owing to the limited social opportunities, residents attended the dances at Penny,^[41] and the wives, such as Mrs. Abernethy, Mrs. Parranto and Mrs. Wagner, participated in the women’s functions at that location.^[42] Occasionally, the Penny women would visit Guilford.^[43]

Commuters often rode bicycles adapted for railway line travel,^[44] which were prone to jump the track on bends.^[45] Authorized employees regularly used the sawmill’s motorized speeder for shopping, collecting the mail or social visits to Penny. Usually braking in time, on three known occasions, it collided with oncoming trains. Frances Wilson, Penny school teacher (1943-45),^[46] ruptured her appendix on leaping from the speeder during one close encounter.^[47]

Although Mary^[48] Parranto’s husband Philip^[49] relocated to Prince George in 1945, Mary and her children Gordon, Theodore (Ted), Anna May, Fern Marie, and Jim (fostered), remained. The younger ones attended school in Penny.^[50] Gordon and Ted worked for the mill,^[51] but Ted came and went with work.^[52][53] The speeder used without permission, which Gordon had hurriedly abandoned on the main line near Penny, was ejected from the rails when a train crashed into it. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment or a $100 fine.^[54] The daughters relocated on marriage.^[55][56]

Guilford Lumber Co.

Located at Mile 67.5,^[11] the acquired assets of Vick Brothers were relaunched as Guilford Lumber Co. in 1939. Herb O. Vick owned, and Douglas (Doug) L. Abemethy managed, the sawmill.^[57][58] The following year, they were charged with the theft of logs, owned by Red Mountain Lumber of Penny, that had been passing their log boom on the Fraser River. Remanded to a higher court, the defendants were found not guilty.^[59] In 1941, Abernethy and Frank Belanger, his logging camp foreman, bought new logging equipment in Vancouver.^[60] Months later, Belanger changed employers and moved his family to Bend,^[61] the same month as the Abernethy family moved into their new six-roomed house.^[62] The following spring, Abernethy was fined for a violation of the Wage Act,^[63] and a mill worker lost two fingers when his mitt caught in the rollers.^[64] That year, two carloads of surplus machinery were shipped from Hutton.^[65]

In 1943, Charles Howarth of Calgary, who managed the Hutton mill during the 1920s, purchased the Guilford mill,^[66][58] with Doug Abernethy remaining as manager.^[67] The next year, a company logger died in a work-related accident at Mile 61.^[68] The Guilford logging camp at Mile 61.4 comprised several windowless bunkhouses, a cookhouse, and horse barn. Another camp existed at Mile 62.5,^[45] where the then unmarried Frank Wagner worked 1943-44,^[69] and during a subsequent winter.^[70]

In 1945, Clarence Riggs, aged 11, son of Bert & Mabel Riggs of Penny drowned. Employed as a flunky in the mill cookhouse, Clarence had been walking on the log boom. The Fraser River was unsuccessfully dragged, but the body was found by Joseph Kobra of Penny 12 days later in the millpond at Penny.^[71] The deceased was transported by rail to Prince George for the funeral. In recognition of Clarence being a member of the recently formed Penny Scout troop, the pallbearers were Prince George Boy Scouts in full uniform, as were other attendees.^[72]

Guilford Sawmills was subsequently fined for violating the control of employment of children provisions.^[73] Months later, in an unrelated incident, the company was fined for contravening the National Selective Service regulations.^[74]

In 1947, the mill resumed operations^[75] after a new boiler plant was installed.^[76] The mill engineer was joined by his family,^[77] and a new bookkeeper commenced in the office.^[78] The Howarths, the owners, were residents from 1948^[79] until the mill closed permanently the following year. Initially, the horses were sold,^[80] then the equipment from the 25,000-foot capacity mill was advertised.^[81] The boilers and planers remained unsold, but H. Liere acquired the sawmill, which he shipped to Babine Lake.^[82] Millwright Frank Wagner, his wife Marie, and her daughter Kaye, became the sole residents and caretakers.^[83][84] After graduating high school in Prince George, Kaye left in 1953.^[85] When the Wagners relocated in 1956, they created a ghost town.^[86]

Charles Howarth, whose Arrow Lakes Lumber Co. in Nakusp did not survive the Great Depression,^[67] died at 108 in Calgary in 1994. His wife Jessie lived to 101, making them the only husband-and-wife centenarians on the centenarians’ list for West Kootenay-Boundary.^[87] He contacted typhoid in 1918, quit smoking in the late 1940s, and retained a sharp mind into his later years.^[88]

Fortin Sawmill

In 1959, Frank Fortin bought the Mile 61.4 camp from the government. He burned the dilapidated buildings, and constructed a sawmill, garage, cookhouse, bunkhouse, and finally the family houses. Beginning production in December 1959, the output soon increased to 30,000-35,000 feet daily. After burning down in a March 1960 fire, the mill was rebuilt.^[89]

The mill’s generating plant supplied electricity for the whole community until 10:00pm each evening.^[90] Having electricity and running cold water in the two-bedroomed family houses was an uncommon luxury compared with many East Line communities.^[91] The camp comprised four families with children and about a dozen men.^[92] An ice skating rink in winter, and a large above ground pool, bikes and swings in summer, provided entertainment for the children,^[93] while correspondence courses satisfied their schooling requirements.^[94]

With passenger trains arriving in the middle of the night,^[18][19] a lantern placed upon the track alerted the locomotive engineer to passengers huddled in the shedlike shelter at the unofficial flag stop.^[95] After the weekend, several employees returned to work from Prince George, or intermediate stops, aboard the early morning way freight,^[96] and groceries ordered from the city arrived by the same means.^[97] Families kept their ice cream in the cookhouse freezer.^[11]

The Fortin Sawmill received a merit award for safety in 1965.^[98] Purchased in 1968 by Alan MacDonald, the mill ran for only two months, before its resale to Wilf Leboe. Never reopening, the property was sold as a hunting lodge, and the mill equipment shipped to Crescent Spur.^[99] The location possibly continued as a way freight flag stop until that service ended in 1977.^[20][3][100]