John "Truth" Houston - Nelson, BC - Citizen Memorials on Waymarking.com

John "Truth" Houston seems to continue to have quite an attraction a century after his passing, attracting a bookcrossing zone book, The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene, on Wednesday, July 24, 2002. I can say with assurance that the book was no longer there when we passed by several years later.

This memorial monument to John "Truth" Houston stands in the median of Vernon Street beside the courthouse in Nelson, BC. Other namesakes of Houston's are the Houston Block on Baker Street at Josephine Street in Nelson, Houston Street in Nelson, Houston Lane in Prince George, BC and the town of Houston in BC.

John Houston

Born 1850, Died 1910
First Mayor of the
City of Nelson, BC

Held Office in the
Following Years
1897, 1898, 1900, 1905

Erected by His Personal Friends

Landing first in the railroad town of Donald, BC in 1888, this is where he started his first newspaper. For the next 22 years he would publish in such far flung towns such as New Westminster, Nelson, Rossland and Prince Rupert. His last paper would be printed in 1910 at South Fort George.

His longest and most notable sojourn was in the mining town of Nelson, where he began publication of The Miner. A vociferous supporter of small business and the working man, Houston railed endlessly against big business, most notably the railways, which led him into the political arena. While in Nelson, Houston became the first mayor of the town in 1897, serving until 1905.

Widely known and both loved and hated, both for his views and his propensity for expressing them, John Houston has been the subject of many biographies. Below are excerpts from two.

John Houston was one of the few men accorded the peculiar privilege of reading his own obituary. On 4 March 1910 The Victoria Colonist, The Victoria Times and The Vancouver Province reported his death prematurely and printed lengthy reviews of his life. According to the Colonist, he was "the pioneer journalist of the Canadian Kootenays, and known and loved by many from Mexico to the Arctic circle." The Times referred to him as one of B.C.'s "most historic and picturesque characters" and went on to say: "It is possibly correct to say that John Houston was the best known Canadian newspaperman on the Pacific coast. He was a typical Westerner, of the sort that Brett Harte immortalised in the days before the stage coach had been put out of business by the iron horse." What is more, in an editorial published the same day, the Times paid Houston the considerable compliment of referring to him as "the Nestor of the press of British Columbia."

Although he was in fact very ill, Houston undoubtedly read these reports and their subsequent retractions with some mirth. A cartoon of him reading his obituaries appeared on page one of the Times," In the same issue, in a story entitled "John Houston's Death is Denied," that paper explained that "John Houston has always had a faculty for doing the unexpected." Three days later the Province borrowed a line from Mark Twain and noted that the news of Houston's death "was greatly exaggerated." Houston himself got in on the fun when he wrote C. H. Gibbons, who had penned the obituary in the Province: "I didn't know I was dead till your paper came and even then I might have questioned the accuracy of the information if I hadn't known its reliability.... Don't be putting in any correction — I'll make good on the story." True to his word, he died at 3:30 p.m. on 8 March 1910.
Patrick Wolfe, Tramp Printer Extraordinary
Whether intentionally or not, John Houston began running for mayor the minute he stepped foot in Nelson - or at least he began to demonstrate the kind of civic leadership that would make him an ideal candidate when the opportunity finally arrived seven years later. From the pulpit of his newspaper, The Miner, which had a readership throughout the province and the American northwest, he presented himself as the voice of the Kootenay while promoting the region's mineral potential and campaigning for less cumbersome mining regulations. Closer to home he called for better postal service and railed day and night against the CPR whose oppressive labour practices and excessive land grants threatened (in his opinion) the very future of his city. He recruited Edward Arthur as the town's first doctor, (seducing him away from the CPR, no doubt to his great satisfaction), subscribed to the first school, and advertised for investors and tradesmen with descriptions of Nelson's rosy future. As a businessman, he identified himself with enterprises that involved the growth and prosperity of Nelson - Consumers' Waterworks and The Nelson Electric Light Company - as well as real estate development and the construction of commercial buildings in the downtown core.

Houston also clearly positioned himself on the left of the political spectrum as a populist defender of working men and small shop keepers against big business - the mining, lumber and transportation companies and their allies in the Victoria Legislature. As a champion of the Kootenay, he soon realized that the region was quickly attaining an economic importance to the province which far outweighed its political power and, as early as 1893, began to campaign for the incorporation of Nelson. Unfortunately, fear that Houston's real motive was to get local taxpayers to bail out his struggling electric company kept many property owners from signing the required petition.

Undaunted, Houston turned directly to provincial politics and served as agent for the popular local merchant J. Fred Hume's successful bid for office in 1894. In recognition of the Kootenay's growing importance, Hume became Minister of Mines and was able to bring in legislation giving BC miners the eight hour day. At that time, the provincial legislature was not organized along party lines but was a chaotic mix of elected members representing moneyed interest groups adhering to a number of powerful leaders. Between 1890 and 1900, the province had six premiers and became so dysfunctional that, in 1900, Prime Minister Laurier dismissed Lieutenant Governor Robert McInnis and appointed Sir Henry Gustave Joly De Lotbiniere. Three years later, this gentleman was to have a decisive effect on Houston's political career.
Read the exciting conclusion at John Truth Houston

Website with more information on either the memorial or the person(s) it is dedicated to: [Web Link] Location: Median of Vernon Street, west of Ward Street

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