Armstrong, British Columbia - People-Named Places on Waymarking.com

The Place

Around Armstrong "A Brief History"
When work was completed on the Shuswap\Okanagan Railway in 1892, Armstrong consisted of a lone box car which served as station and home for the rail agent. "Apart from the box car," remarked one pioneer, "there was just willows & swamp". Ironically, the largest settlement in Spallumcheen, Lansdowne, had been bypassed by the S & O Line. Undaunted, the citizens of the community packed up belongings, even buildings and resettled beside the tracks in Armstrong.

Today the only standing testimony we have of this once sprawling western town is the old Lansdowne cemetery.

Armstrong was incorporated as a City Municipality on March 26, 1913.

Armstrong was named after William Charles Heaton-Armstrong. In 1885 Heaton-Armstrong started a private bank and arranged a successful issue of bonds for the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway and visited Armstrong which was named for him, in 1892.

The first Mayor of the City of Armstrong was JAMES M. WRIGHT, 1913.

St. James Anglican Church was moved from Lansdowne in the early 1890s; it is the oldest church in Armstrong - on the corner of Patterson Ave. and Mill St.

The word Spallumcheen is Indian in origin and signifies in the Indian language "The meeting of the waters". This no doubt refers to the low lying land joining the Columbia and Fraser River drainage basins located approximately one mile south of Armstrong where the two drainage streams split - (one flowing south the other north).

The Armstrong Hotel was built in the early 1890s for Hughy Keyes.

The first native born white child in the North Okanagan was Mrs. Charles (Sophie) Patten (nee: Sophia Catherine Ehmke) October 15, 1878.

In 1873 Alfred Postill pre-empted 640 acres of land on Deep Creek. In 1878 he erected a sawmill with a capacity of 12,000 board feet per day. Levi W. Patten began managing the mill in 1883 and continued for 22 years.

Augustus Schubert was the last surviving member of the historic Cariboo Overlander Expedition in 1862. He died here in 1946 at the age of 91.

In 1904 E.R. Burnett grew the first celery in Armstrong (known as "Celery City"). The first crop amounted to 300 Ibs.

Armstrong's first electric power was generated by pelton water wheel in the old Power House on Davis Creek. Work began on the structure in 1906. It was later supplemented by diesel power.

Round Prairie School began as a community effort and was completed by August Schubert Sr. and August Schubert Jr. It was erected in 1885 and later taken over by the government. Thomas Leduc was the first teacher.

George Patchett built the first house in Armstrong in 1891. It stood just off Patterson Ave. at the edge of the bottomland.

Field lacrosse was in Armstrong as early as 1905.

Vance Young was the first white male born in Spallumcheen, October 25, 1878.

In 2013 Armstrong [celebrated] their 100th birthday.
From Armstrong History

The Person

William Charles Heaton-Armstrong
September 1, 1853 - July 22, 1917
Background
Born in Gmunden, Austria, Heaton-Armstrong was a son of John Heaton-Armstrong. Educated partly in Austria and partly in Ireland, he succeeded on the death of his father to the senior representation of the families of Heaton-Armstrong, Armstrong of Mangerton, Mount Heaton and Farney Castle, Macdonnell of New Hall, and Heaton of Yorkshire. In 1885 he married the Baronesse Bertha Maxmiliana Zois-Edelstein; oldest surviving daughter of 4th Baron Zois-Edelstein, of Austria. They had two sons, Duncan Heaton-Armstrong and John Heaton-Armstrong, and one daughter.

Career
In his youth Heaton-Armstrong joined the British Merchant Navy and in 1876 joined the Turkish Navy to fight in the Russo-Turkish War. In the 1880s he got involved in the Chilean-Peruvian War assisting Chile. He visited nearly all the Colonies, and travelled very extensively. His first involvement in politics came when he stood as a Conservative candidate contesting Mid-Tipperary at the General Election in 1892 against the separation of Ireland from England. He stood as a Loyalist in favour of granting local self-government to the greatest possible extent to Ireland. Thereafter he switched his allegiance to the Liberal Party and was Liberal MP for the Sudbury Division of Suffolk from 1906–10. In the 1906 General Election he gained Sudbury from the Liberal Unionists but served just one parliamentary term. He did not defend his seat at the January 1910 General Election and retired from politics.

He then went into banking, financing railways in Jersey and British Columbia. [It was his financing of the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway, which ran through Armstrong, which resulted in his becoming the town's namesake.]

Supposedly Armstrong Station, Ontario was named after him. He was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, Royal Zoological Society, Royal Botanic Society, Royal Statistical Society, and other learned Societies. He had published the 'Calculation of the Sun’s Meridian Altitude' and was Lord of the Manor of Roscrea.
Paraphrased from Wiki

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