Main Street is actually Canyon Drive, which doubles as Highway 3, AKA the Crowsnest Highway. This small park with a small green space and several benches is at the corner of Canyon Drive and Tenth Avenue North.
In the park is an irregularly shaped boulder, upon which are mounted a plaque and a pair of Rotary Markers. The plaque (below) indicates that Creston's beginnings occurred in 1891. The park was opened in April of 1991, the month in 1891 that the first property within the present town of Creston was staked and filed.
The Settler Era: 1865-1898
White prospectors began passing through the Creston area in the 1860's, following the Dewdney Trail to the gold fields at Wildhorse Creek. Some prospecting was likely done along the way, but because nothing of any value was found, these early arrivals moved on.
John C. Rykert was the first official white settler in the Creston area. He erected a one-room log office near the banks of the Kootenay River in 1883. Rykert acted as Customs and Immigration officer from this site, opposite what is now known as Porthill, Idaho, until he retired in 1924. The large house that he built just north of the border still stands today.
Also in 1883, William Adolph Baillie-Grohman began investigating ways of reclaiming the Creston flats from the annual flooding of the Kootenay River. Dyking of the river began in 1893, and 8,000 acres were reclaimed. However, the flood of 1894 destroyed the dykes and, except for a second small, unsuccessful effort in 1898, the idea was abandoned for the time being.
Three men, F. Little, J. Arrowsmith, and J. Dow, arrived in the valley in 1891, and each claimed a section of land. These early pre-emptions would later become the site of the town of Creston. Fred Little, who filed his claim on April 20, 1891, also chose the name Creston in 1899, after a small town in Iowa he had once visited.
Several other families also arrived in the early 1890's, though Creston was still a long ways from being an established town. The Huscroft family, which came in covered wagon from Utah in 1891, originally settled near the Kootenay River. The flood of 1894 forced them to move to higher ground, into the area east of Creston that today is known as Huscroft.
The settler era saw a renewal of interest in mining in the Creston area. The most prominent mine in the area was the Alice mine, located on Goat Mountain and staked in 1890. Several other mines were also discovered before the turn of the century. However, development of these claims could not occur until railways were built to make shipment of ore and supplies possible, and, even then, the mines of the Creston Valley would be short-lived. The Alice mine, however, was lucrative enough that a concentrator was built near the CPR tracks at what became known as Alice Siding, just north of Creston itself. The ore was shipped from the mine to the concentrator on an aerial tramway.
In 1898, the Canadian Pacific Railway built an extension, the Crows Nest Pass Railway, through the Creston Valley. Within two years, the great Northern had also opened a line through the valley, from Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, to Kuskanook, on the east shore of Kootenay Lake. These railways were built to access the rich mining districts near Nelson and Kaslo. Although Creston experienced a bit of a boom due to railway construction, for a few more years at least, it was considered only a minor siding along the way. Both railways had a terminus on Kootenay Lake, where steamboats would meet the trains to take passengers and freight to Nelson, Kaslo, and other points along the lake. The railways and steamboats of this era provided the necessary transportation within the Creston Valley.
From Creston Valley