Longworth, British Columbia

Railway

Longworth, like Hutton to its northwest, and Lindup to its southeast, was an original train station (1914) on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway^[4][5] (the Canadian National Railway after nationalization). The name, a locational surname of Anglo-Saxon origin, deriving from any one of the places called "Longworth" in Berkshire, Herefordshire, or Lancashire,^[6] was probably^[7] selected from the list prepared by Josiah Wedgwood (submitted at the request of William P. Hinton, the railway's general manager).^[8]

Longworth is situated at Mile 79.4, Fraser Subdivision^[9] (about Mile 169 during the line’s construction). New arrivals for the Mile 172 camp and those passing through to Mile 166 (northwest of Lindup) often become lost on the forest trails.^[10]

The station became a flag stop around 1960.^[11][12][13] Built in 1914, the standard-design Plan 100‐152 (Bohi’s Type E)^[14][15] station building was demolished in 1969.^[16] Longworth, and similarly isolated communities, unsuccessfully appealed when the Prince George-McBride way freight ceased operations in 1977.^[17]

Although CNR trains struck straying livestock,^[18] wildlife was a greater problem. During one 24-hour period in 1982, collisions with trains killed 17 caribou near Longworth. Steep snow banks along the rail lines made it all but impossible for moose and caribou to get off the track in time. Over a three-week period, 30 caribou and 150 moose were estimated to have been killed in the area. The reported deaths of 1,000 moose in a previous year was believed an understatement.^[19]

Community

In 1924, the town boasted 100 permanent residents, a school (since 1921),^[20] church (parson visited from McBride),^[21] dancehall, general store and poolroom. A local symphony orchestra provided music for the dances held every two weeks.^[22]

The transporting of a body to Longworth for burial is first noted in 1921,^[23] with the cemetery itself first mentioned in 1937.^[24] Burials are still performed at this location.^[2]

Arthur E.C. Read (Reid alternate spelling) was the inaugural postmaster (1915–20) but the post office remained closed for 15 of those months. Commonly, the postmaster in such towns was also a storeowner. Arriving in 1921, Sidney (Sid) T. Coats, postmaster (1922–35),^[25] ran a general store with wife Lulu^[26][27] (a sister-in-law of Wallace N. Jaeck) (see #Forestry & Farming).^[28] The store closed when the mill folded during the Great Depression.^[29] When fire destroyed Read’s general store,^[30] he occupied temporary premises. After he opened the 10-bedroomed Toneko Lodge in 1932,^[31] he relocated the general store into this hotel, and later the post office,^[32] when postmaster (1935–45).^[25] During 1937, the proprietor regularly advertised^[33] the lodge and later the combined lodge and general store (which served as a retail and wholesale distributor of grains and flour).^[34] He was the first president of the Yellowhead Highway Association, an advocacy group formed in 1936 to create a highway link.^[35] In ill health, Arthur sold the business to Cecil Alcock (postmaster 1945-50)^[25][36] and weeks later, died at 57.^[37] He had arrived in the district as part of a railway construction crew, had been postmaster for a total of 17 years, and also a guide for big game hunting.^[36]

The town suffered a measles epidemic in 1924^[22] and a whooping cough epidemic in 1937.^[38] In the wintertime, competitive cross-country and downhill skiing was the major sport.^[39] In 1938, the young people organized a badminton club, and the community club purchased a movie projector.^[40] At the initial screening, which comprised several short reels, the packed Longworth Hall included a number from Penny.^[41] That year, after a badminton tournament, the Sinclair Mills team stayed to watch a movie.^[42] On another occasion, the badminton club organized a dance in the community hall.^[43] The boys’ and girls’ dairy calf club, formed in 1937,^[44] also held fundraising dances.^[45] It was common for such dances to attract visitors from one another’s neighbouring communities.^[46] The population numbered 129 in the mid-1940s.^[47]

The Longworth School and the Longworth South School, which often held combined events,^[48] amalgamated for the 1939/40 year as the United Rural Longworth School,^[49] but the new building at the crossroads site awaited completion.^[50] In 1955, teacherages were built and equipped.^[51] With an average enrolment of 12 during 1960-63,^[52] the school closed in 1966.^[53]

In 1955, the partly decomposed body of a lone homesteader was found with a rifle shot to the head.^[54] Nels Adolf Sjolund, postmaster (1955),^[25] proprietor of the Toneko Lodge and part owner of the general store, also committed suicide that year. By that time, the population had shrunk to 65.^[55] Pauline (1928–58) and Raymond (1946–58) Melynchuk, a mother and son met premature deaths in 1958. They were daughter and grandson^[56] respectively of pioneer couple Orva (1890-1963) and Mabel (1888-1955) Prather. Orva was a Longworth resident for 43 years.^[57]

In 1976, when two-year-old Seth Allen became separated from his parents in the Hungary Creek area, he spent a night in the bush, before a search effort by the 35-person community found the infant.^[58] Three years earlier, Thad, Seth’s father, was a key organizer of a back-to-nature summer camp for urban children that was held in Longworth.^[59]

When Teresa McCoy retired as postmaster in 1985, she had held the position (assumed on a temporary basis) for 30 years. A former sawmill office skidded down the track from Lindup, the 10- by 12-foot hut (which she owned) served as the post office.^[60][25]

In 1990, ownership of the two-hectare former school land, passed to the district to create a community park with ball field. Students completed correspondence courses in the former schoolhouse, and residents regularly used the more recently built community hall for various activities.^[61] A previous hall dated from the 1930s.^[62]

By 2000, a population of 23,^[63] occupied the 21 dwellings.^[64]

Forestry & Farming

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.^[65] In the 1920s, with logging limited to the winter and fall seasons to facilitate the hauling of logs by horse or oxen^[66] over snow and ice, loggers were transient. However, year round work existed in sawmill towns such as Giscome, Aleza Lake, Hutton, Penny and Longworth.^[67] In 1921, Wallace (Wally) N. Jaeck (1876-1954)^[68] acquired the Longworth Lumber Co. from a Mr. Trimble. Jaeck was already in partnership with Robert (Bob) Allen in the Jaeck-Allen Lumber Co.,^[20] a mill built by Allen at Longworth in 1919.^[69] In 1923, this partnership dissolved when Allen joined Fred Thrasher (the mill's former accountant) in a sawmill venture at Loos.^[70] Labour shortages at the Longworth mill eliminated the night shift.^[71] To address the accommodation problem, the company erected a boarding house.^[21]

Severe forest fires occurred in 1927.^[72] In 1929, the Longworth mill worked double shifts, but US lumber duties loomed,^[73] and the mill closed in 1932.^[68] In 1935, Don McPhee and Roy Spurr acquired the assets of the bankrupt Longworth Lumber Co. and relocated them to the Hudson Bay Spur at Mile 104^[74] (Upper Fraser).^[75] Carl Johnson purchased the old mill site with the intention of repairing the houses.^[76] The return of logging in 1937 provided a vital outlet for the farmers’ produce. Don McPhee managed the summer and winter logging camps,^[77] located in the Longworth district, between Toneko Lake and the Fraser,^[78] from where the logs were floated downriver to the mills. Robert Allen operated his crew three miles from Longworth^[79] during the 1938/39 and 1939/40 winters, before relocating his equipment back to Snowshoe.^[43] In 1942, after a lifetime in farming and lumber, McPhee died at 64.^[80] The Sinclair Spruce summer camp was in the vicinity at the time.^[81]

Injuries and death were common in sawmills and logger camps. In 1925, a Longworth logger suffered fatal injuries.^[82] In 1939, a falling log broke a logger’s leg^[83] and a falling tree broke bones and caused serious internal injuries.^[84] At C.A. Berg's sawmill, near Longworth in 1956, an employee jumping from a snowplowing tractor was fatally crushed between the tracks and hydraulic cylinder.^[85]

In 1924, Mr. & Mrs. Wilson A. Riggs arrived with their children^[34] and their residence became a focal point of the community.^[86] Their expanding farm^[87] comprised vegetable crops^[88] and dairy cattle. In 1937, he was the first local farmer to ship cream to the Interior Creamery at Prince George,^[89] expanding to a six-farm source by 1940.^[90] These farmers’ purebred Ayrshires gained renown.^[91] Wilson was also active in advancing the farming community.^[92] Leonard H. Jaeck, Wallace’s brother,^[68] and farming 1931-36,^[93] had a herd of dairy goats.^[94]

In 1977, Lawrence (Larry) Gaylord, of Longworth, was arrested in Prince George and charged with trafficking, after police found a pound of marijuana in his hotel room. His friend, Joseph Carmen Marvici, obtained counsel and appeared in court for him. Gaylord was remanded in custody and ultimately deported to Alaska. When police conducted a search and found some 300 pounds of marijuana about half a mile from Marvici’s Longworth farm, he was charged with cultivating marijuana. After the charges were stayed, Marvici laid a formal complaint of harassment against the RCMP. Although not determined criminal, the two drug squad officers’ irresponsible conduct led to disciplinary action.^[95]

Roads

To extend the existing Prince George-Aleza Lake highway,^[96] the 30 miles to Longworth were cleared, grubbed and rough graded during 1929-31. However, the rapid deterioration of the road, culverts and bridges, made it largely impassable beyond Hansard.^[97] By 1938, proper grading was completed to within 2.5 miles of Longworth.^[98] Although Hansard-Sinclair Mills was later gravelled,^[99] Sinclair Mills-Longworth was left to deteriorate.^[100] In 1960, the provincial conservative candidate brought two horses in a car trailer to Sinclair Mills, and campaigned the next 35 miles southeast by horseback.^[101] The railway continued to provide the only year-round accessibility.^[102]

During 1986-87, the road and bridges on the Sinclair Mills-Longworth section were rebuilt to create a "fair weather" road,^[103] leaving the community still dependent upon the railway in the wet season.^[104] With one hill impassable for a week, a lot of the 1992 work by the highway maintenance contractor was undone by the fall rains, owing to the growing number of logging trucks breaking up the road. Although residents had no expectation of a paved road, they counted upon a well-maintained solid gravel base.^[105] That year, the Hutton Road route was renamed the Upper Fraser Road.^[106] Over the following decade, not only was this section of gravel road still in poor shape,^[107] but the whole distance as far northwest as the Hansard Bridge was barely drivable.^[108] Nowadays, it is considered a good gravel road.^[109][1]

Electricity, Broadcast Transmissions & Communications Devices

In 1924, residents installed radios for the upcoming broadcasts from the cities.^[21]

From 1929, the CNR telephone lines (which in 1914 connected Prince George with all GTP points east),^[110] opened for public usage, linking Dome Creek with Prince George.^[111] The CN lines from Giscome still provided the phone service 50 years later.^[112] The referendum for a local telephone service, at a cost of up to $216,390 for the community,^[113] was unanimously approved in 1993.^[114] Owing to the capital cost to Telus, even with government subsidies, negotiations dragged on for eight years.^[115] When installed in 1999, the costs to each household was $20,000. However, until 2001, when the company added an independent power source to eliminate power surges, lengthy interruptions of service were common.^[116]

A new transmitter, installed by CKPG-TV on Mount Tabor in 1964, provided reception as far southeast as Longworth & Penny.^[117]

A few homes or businesses had diesel generators for electricity.^[118] In 1989, after 13 of the 26 eligible voters voted unanimously in favour, BC Hydro constructed an electrical distribution line to the community.^[119]