As we approach our city's centennial next March, it's interesting to look back to see what life was like over a hundred years ago. And that's possible thanks to the Prince George newspapers digitization project, found online at http://pgnewspapers.lib.pg.bc.ca/.
The earliest newspaper in the collection is the Fort George Tribune of November 13, 1909. It was published weekly by John Houston, who had previously established newspapers in Prince Rupert, Nelson, New Westminster and in several other small towns. John Houston was Nelson's first mayor and served as an MLA for Nelson and West Kootenay.
So what was a former mayor and MLA doing publishing a newspaper out of a shack in South Fort George? Turns out Houston's temper, his independent spirit, restless nature, and a drinking problem led to him moving around a lot. He had spent 15 years in Nelson, promoting the area, starting the Nelson Electric Light Company and becoming mayor and later an MLA for the area. At times Houston was unscrupulous in business and politics and not above getting physical to get his point across. He was charged three times with assault. As described on the website www.johntruthhouston.com, a heritage project of The Nelson History Theatre Society, Houston lost it during a meeting with railway officials in 1896. '...during an interview with a number of CPR executives, he "seized a large and heavy ruler and dealt Mr. Marpole a fearful blow to the head." The flow of blood was copious and "all the CPR men were more or less wounded." In the following week's edition, The Miner (a Nelson newspaper formerly owned by Houston) helpfully pointed out, "for the benefit of strangers who may call on the distinguished editor....that a doctor resides on the same floor and there is a drug store below where lint and bandages can be procured." '
Frustrated with politics and his unsuccessful business dealings John Houston left Nelson for good in 1907. But Houston was an experienced and respected writer, and had turned a new leaf by the time he reached Fort George. His stories in that early edition of the Tribune included demands for more frequent mail service. One item noted that two local men traveling to Quesnel took 300 copies of the Tribune with them. "As mails are only sent out from Fort George once a month, the Tribune will have to rely almost entirely on individual effort in order that its subscribers be served promptly." A subscription cost $3 per year.
Transportation was limited - wagon roads from Quesnel via the Blackwater Crossing to Stoney Creek and Fort George were still being constructed. Steam-powered sternwheelers carried people and freight up and down the rivers, but not in winter or in times of low water.
On the last page a story headlined 'ILLEGAL SALE OF "BOOZE" AT FORT GEORGE' has the editor (who by now had quit drinking) calling for the "....strictest regulation of the sale of liquor and for the abolishment of bar-rooms altogether."
The Fort George Tribune of Nov. 20, 1909, carries the headline: PEOPLE ENQUIRING ABOUT FORT GEORGE with letters from writers in Oregon, Washington and Salmon Arm asking about land for sale, the local climate and when the railway would be completed.
Editor John Houston's answers give us a picture of the town that had not yet been named Prince George. "Fort George is a Hudson's Bay Company store and an Indian village of 100 men, women, and children. South Fort George is where the town is at present."
He went on to describe the town in answer to a writer from Salmon Arm asking about the population and if there was demand for a boarding house. "There are about 50 white people who either live at Fort George or on pre-emptions not far away. A boarding house kept well....would fill a want at Fort George and would be a Godsend in any part of the Cariboo. There are no bakeries, laundries, milliners, tailors, blacksmiths, tinners, carpenters, stenographers, lawyers, doctors, preachers, constables, or schoolteachers at Fort George."
By the spring of 1910 John Houston was ill. The following description is also from the website www.johntruthhouston.com. The 'Truth' refers to the first newspaper he started, in Donald B.C. (near Revelstoke) in 1887.
'Living and working in a canvas and board shack at constantly freezing temperatures broke his health and pneumonia set in. Almost a week's travel to hospital in Quesnel finished him off - but not without a moment of grim comedy which he no doubt appreciated. Rumours of his death reached Victoria and on March 4th his obituary appeared in several Victoria and Vancouver papers and was copied across the province. Houston's response was typical. To the editor of The Vancouver Province he wrote: "I didn't know I was dead until your paper came out and even then I might have questioned the accuracy of the information if I hadn't known its reliability. Don't be putting in any correction - I'll make good on the story." And on March 8th, 1910, at fifty-nine years old, he did.'
That fall John Houston's shack was burned down. An article in the October 1, 1910 Fort George Tribune describes the event and pays tribute to him.
"The little cabin in which the Tribune first saw the light of day has disappeared and gone the way of all primitive northern bungalows. Mr. Walker purchased the building from the original owner of the townsite, A. G. Hamilton, and on Monday razed it to the ground. The dimensions of the little canvas covered cabin were 10x12, and in it John Houston had the most compact little printing plant that ever graced the confines of isolated sections. It was a departmental store in the woods. In it was restaurant; a rooming house, a drug store, a carpenter shop, a library, a bindery, and the publishing office an unprivileged-mail weekly newspaper. The editor was the head of all these departments. He composed as he stood at the solitary frame. He decomposed in a sitting posture. He washed his forms with water taken from the Fraser, lit his perpetual fire in a small box-stove, swept out all the departments every morning, packed his coal from Kennedy's store, filled his one little oil lamp, and polished its chimney three times a day. At meal hours he spread a sheet of paper over the imposing stone and stood up at his meals - bacon and beans, coffee and cakes. There was not one minute lost in the long day that went into the early hours of the morning. He worked out 1909, and worked in 1910, by setting new six point by lamp light. He did the same on Christmas Eve. He attended to correspondence numbering 300 letters per month. He was scrupulously particular about his mailing list and his books. And now this abode of Houston has been dismembered for the sake of disposing of the dozen planks the structure contained for commercial purposes. Had the big-hearted owner of this priceless landmark but resolved the thought in his inner self, he would have left to posterity an emblem that would have stimulated the unborn thousand and spurred them on to emulate the actions of one who knew not the meaning of the word failure."
John Houston was buried with municipal honours in Nelson. A monument in the city's downtown honours his memory. The Town of Houston west of Prince George is named after John Houston, as is Houston Lane, near the Fraser River in South Fort George.
Jeff Elder is a member of the Prince George Heritage Commission.
