Thirteen km. east of New Denver, Sandon became the center of what was the richest silver-lead producing region in Canada. Alternatively known as the "Silver City" or the "Heart of the Silvery Slocan", Sandon was set in a narrow gulch surrounded by high, steep mountains, split by the fast-flowing Carpenter Creek, which flowed through the centre of town under its main street.
Vast amounts of galena ore were discovered here by Eli Carpenter and Jack Seaton in 1891, inducing prospectors to flock from around North America to test their luck in the Slocan. By 1895 Sandon was a bustling town and the terminus of 2 railways. Incorporated as a city on January 1, 1898, Sandon for a few years had more than 5000 residents, several brothels and a booming economy. The Kaslo & Slocan Railway connected Sandon with nearby Kaslo, on Kootenay Lake to the east, while the Nakusp & Slocan Railway, a Canadian Pacific subsidiary, arrived at about the same time from New Denver to the west. In 1900 the city was almost leveled by a large fire which destroyed much of the city. With the mines producing abundantly and silver prices high, the city rebuilt with nary a second thought.
Like all the other silver towns of the era, Sandon's fate followed silver prices, and it was unincorporated in 1920 after many years of decline.
The population again rose dramatically during World War II when, under provisions of the War Measures Act, it was made an internment camp for 950 Japanese Canadians from the coast. Not long after the Japanese Canadians were allowed to return to the coast, nearly 1000 miners were attracted to Sandon during the Korean War due to high metal prices.
Mass Confinement
By late summer 1942, all Japanese Canadians had been moved from the West Coast. Around 2,150 single men were sent to work on road labour camps. Another 3,500 Japanese Canadians opted to sign contracts to work on sugar beet farms outside British Columbia. (See Sugar Industry.) They served as exploited labourers, and thereby remained “free.” Some 3,000 more affluent Japanese Canadians were permitted to leave the coast in groups and settle in so-called “self-supporting projects” at their own expense.
However, the majority of Japanese Canadians, some 12,000 people, were exiled to the Slocan Valley, in BC’s eastern Kootenay region. They were housed in what were euphemistically called “interior housing centres.” These were mainly in largely-abandoned mining towns (e.g., New Denver, Kaslo, Greenwood and Sandon); or in a government-built camp called Tashme, near the town of Hope, in the Fraser Canyon.
Once moved to the Slocan Valley, they lived in abandoned houses hastily refitted by the government, or in newly-built shacks. The housing was hastily put together and did not protect against the frigid weather. Except for producing shelter, the government did not provide the inmates with any financial assistance. In the United States, the camps offered basic food, clothing and education. But Canadian officials provided no food or clothing, and no schooling above the elementary level. (See also Hide Hyodo Shimizu.) Ultimately, some Christian groups opened up high schools in the settlements. The government hired some Nisei to cut wood, but in general people had to find such work as they could or live off their savings.
From The Canadian Encyclopedia
Sandon Townsite and Cemetery
Description of Historic Place
Sandon Townsite and Cemetery (Sandon) comprise the remains of the former city of Sandon as it was laid out in the 1890’s, and include both extant and ruined structures, cultural landscapes, and artifacts dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This historic place straddles Carpenter Creek in the Selkirk Mountains, about ten kilometres east of New Denver in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia.
Heritage Values of Historic Place
Sandon is valued as the West Kootenay’s best example of a mining ghost town. Sandon epitomizes the “boom-bust” narrative that threatened every town that sprang up at the discovery of rich ore deposits in the area at the end of the nineteenth century.
Sandon holds heritage value as the location of a
Japanese Canadian internment camp during World War II. It is perhaps one of the best examples of how economically struggling West Kootenay towns were used to accept Japanese Canadian internees during a general era of economic hardship due to a declining mining industry over the previous decades. In 1942 the population of Sandon grew from under 50 to over 900 almost overnight as internees arrived to live under enforced confinement rules and to work on government ordered projects. The associative values of the transformation the Japanese Canadian population brought to Sandon are passively evident amongst the ruins of buildings and sites that were once places of worship, schools, places of business, hospitals, gardens and homes.
The Sandon cemetery, located 1.7 km from the townsite centre, is an important element of the narrative of this place; the historical record embodied in the cemetery is important to the story of the people who made the city what it was, and bore witness to the events that make Sandon what it is today.
Character-Defining Elements
The character-defining elements of Sandon include:
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Continuous residential use by citizens since the 1890s.
- The location of the former city alongside Carpenter Creek.
- The relationship of Sandon to mine sites in the surrounding mountains.
- The historic layout of the town, including former streets, railways and city lots.
- Ruins of buildings, structures, and infrastructure dating from the 1890s until the 1950s . All ruins related to commercial, domestic and industrial uses of the place have significance.
- Surviving original buildings dating from the 1890s until the 1950s, whether in their historic location or moved, including Sandon City Hall (1900), Ivanhoe Mine Manager’s Home (1900), Provincial Policeman’s Home (1925), the Hunter-Kendrick block (also known as the Slocan Mercantile Building (1900) and Tattrie & Greer store), K & S Liquor Warehouse (1896), three brothels (1890s) and several homes (1890’s).
- Evidence of the city’s use as a Japanese Canadian internment camp.
From the RDCK Heritage Register