A new two-room school was built in 1917 and in 1921 a third room was added for the new Oyama High School. The catchment area included Winfield and those students arrived by car or bus. The accompanying photograph was taken of the senior class in about 1926. They are Back Row, L to R: Dorothy...
Our blog on the Munson Simpson sawmill that operated in Winfield from 1927 to 1929 appeared earlier. Another blog, “Log chutes in Lake Country” discussed the log chute that over a decade earlier had transported logs from Fir Valley to the Oyama bench land and hence to the Johnston and Carswell...
Oyama during World War II The final featured Heritage Marker will be placed where the Okanagan Rail Trail crosses Oyama Road. Like the other markers in the series, this one was prepared with the assistance of a Canada 150 grant. The crossroads of Highway 97 and Oyama Road was the commercial hub of...
The name Oyama was chosen by the suggestion of the mother of Post Master, Dr. W. H. Irvine. The post office was established in 1906 and required a name. At this time, news reports of Field Marshal Oyama Iwao’s military accomplishments from the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905, had been circulating in...
How did one travel from the Okanagan to the coast in the first decades of the twentieth century? Crossing the coastal mountains was no easy task. The Dewdney Trail, connecting the South Okanagan to Hope, had been built during the Gold Rush, and for years supplies came into the Valley by pack train...
Included in the recently acquired Heddle papers is an unidentified newspaper article, date unknown and most likely from the Vernon News. The article quotes from a journal kept by W. T. Heddle of Oyama during an auto trip that he made from Oyama to Vancouver, via Wenatchee, Washington State. The...