| During 1848, the gold rush brought many people to this region, with visions of finding the "mother lode". These hopes of instant fortune and fame were soon forgotten and the effects of cold, hungry days took their toll. Consequently, many newcomers turned to other means of survival. The area was settled in 1867 by Luc Girouard, and incorporated in 1892. Cornelius O'Keefe discovered that the land at the north end of Okanagan Lake was perfectly suited to raising his large herd of cattle, brought up from Oregon in 1867. During the same period, George Forbes Vernon and his brother moved into the Coldstream Valley to build a ranch of their own. The Coldstream Ranch subsequently grew into one of the largest in Canada. Lord Aberdeen planted the very first orchards in Vernon, in 1861. He later went on to become Governor General of Canada. Soon after, Lord Aberdeen purchased the fertile Coldstream Ranch from the Vernon brothers and developed it into one of the greatest fruit producers in the British Empire. The Okanagan has been famous ever since, for fine fruit orchards.
Historical Sites: O'Keefe Ranch
The O'Keefe Ranch was established in 1867 and operated by the O'Keefe family for the next 110 years. In its earliest days, the ranch was at the end of the wagon road into the Okanagan Valley and the site of the stage coach depot for the Okanagan Post Office, the first in the valley. The O'Keefe Ranch played a major role in the history of the North Okanagan.
Coldstream Ranch
Coldstream, by
Donna Wuest "One of the oldest continually operating ranches in Canada, it was on the far edge of the far West when Charles Houghton founded it to provision the Cariboo Gold Rush in 1863. It's been operating so long Vernon is actually named after its second owners, the Vernon brothers. For decades it was owned by a succession of British bluebloods, including the quixotic Lord Aberdeen, who resigned his appointment as Governor General after he and his profligate brother-in-law Coutts squandered a fortune on grandiose schemes at Coldstream. Nevertheless, they proved drybelt soil could be turned into fine farmland with the aid of irrigation and pioneered the region's world-renowned orchard industry." Harbour Publishing
The Vernon Museum is a good source of historical documentation of the Vernon area.
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