City of Vernon history

In 1867, one of the most famous ranchers, Cornelius O’Keefe, arrived with two others—Thomas Greenhow and Thomas Wood—to establish a ranch at the Head of Okanagan Lake.

Vernon was at one time (c.1877) known as Forge Valley because of Ellison’s blacksmith shop.

It wasn’t until 1878 when C.F. Doan and his wife and child came to the valley that a permanent settlement developed.

Small scale commercial boating had been running since 1882 through the efforts of Captain Thomas Dolman Shorts but when the railway came and the first steam boat, the SS Aberdeen, was built, commercial goods and passenger transport really took off.

Up to this point the area now known as Vernon had gone by three previous names (Nintle-Moos-Chin, Forge Valley and Priest’s Valley). Then, in 1885, E.J. Tronson and Charles Brewer laid out a townsite and gave Vernon its fourth name: Centreville.

In 1887, developer Ezra F. Kysor began to subdivide a portion of Vernon for a suburban housing tract and built a 10-acre park for his new residents.

Leonis had learned many tricks from his legendary, ruthless kinsman Miguel Leonis, “the King of Calabasas,” who he worked for until the latter was crushed to death by a wagon in 1889.

By 1890 the CPR main line was completed and a charter was granted for construction of a branch line from Sicamous to Okanagan Landing.

In 1892, Vernon was finally incorporated as a city of British Columbia.

By 1903, reporters and LA city officials were apparently aware of Leonis and his cronies’ plans.

In 1904 Vernon was the largest town in the valley and the first to have a bank.

On September 16, 1905, the remaining citizens of Vernon voted to incorporate as a city; 62 residents voted for incorporation and four against it.

By 1907, previously genteel Vernon was a town of saloons, gambling dens, and disreputable day-trippers from Los Angeles.

In 1908, a Vernon citizen filed a lawsuit against the board of trustees alleging that they “willfully and knowingly refused and neglected to pass any ordinance providing for the election of their successors.” Their backs against the wall, the trustees finally held an election on March 1, 1908.

In 1909, Leonis lured the Pacific Coast Baseball League to Vernon, and soon the minor-league Vernon Tigers were playing in their own custom-built baseball park.

In 1915, a suspiciously fawning article (or was it an ad?) ran in the Los Angeles Times, declaring that the “people of Vernon like the smell of factory smoke and freely admit it.”

Today Vernon, along with the District of Coldstream and other surrounding areas, is part of the Regional District of the North Okanagan which was formed in 1965.

Descendants of the Furlong family would co-rule Vernon until 1974.

In 2006, eight people moved into a vacant building in Vernon, and three of them filed to run for office.