Joe Rich

Joe Rich is said to have been a trapper and miner who was the first settler in the valley to build a substantial cabin and live here. Trappers had probably preceded him, but had not stayed. He built a log cabin on the southwest side of Joe Rich Creek which stood well back from the creek on what is now Murphy’s ranch between the present location of the Red Star barn and the hill. It apparently survived until the 1930s, but no trace of it remains today. Joe Rich’s name never appeared on the list of titled owners of the property. Presumably he was a squatter. His name was almost certainly spelt without a terminal ‘e’.

He apparently left the valley before his death and was never seen by anyone presently living here or even by their parents. Alice Lundy, a schoolmate of Stan Lindahl’s, says that he went mining in the Cariboo and was killed there. A Medical Certificate of Death for a Joseph Rich age 77 who died of chronic bronchitis on 24 June 1901 in Victoria has been obtained and the record of an 1897 Cariboo County Court case of Joseph Rich vs. Willow River Company in 1897. If these are the Joe Rich of our valley, it would seem that he had left our valley before 1897, and that the land was abandoned when Bill Preston obtained it as a Crown Grant in 1911 and 1913. He may have been primarily interested in prospecting, and have decided to move on when he had thoroughly explored the area perhaps by 1895.

Death Certificate