Fort Steele now has over 60 heritage buildings, some recreations, most restorations, antique tractors and farm equipment, a restored water wheel from one of the local mines, antique vehicles, and just antiquities of all manner.
Fort Steele is a complete community, with a school, church, houses, drug store, black smith, livery stable, hotel, pool hall, police
One of those restored structures is this old Canadian Pacific Railway water Tower, rescued from parts unknown and moved to the fort. The tower still has its level indicator intact, a quick and effective method of ascertaining the water level in the tank. Though the tank appears to be original, we suspect that the stand under it is a reconstruction, the original stand probably no longer capable of supporting the tower. The fort has a steam locomotive which does tours in the summer, much to the delight of steam aficionados. This tower is used to refill the locomotive, just as it did in days gone by.
The town is actually a resurrection of the original Fort Steele which, after the mining booms of 1865 and 1892, fell on hard times. When the railway bypassed the town in favour of Cranbrook, a few miles to the south, it spelled the death knell for the town which was eventually deserted and fell into disrepair. In the late 1950s local citizens wished to protect the old town and restore it as a historic site and museum. In 1961 the government
declared Fort Steele an historic park with a mandate “to preserve, present, and manage for public benefit the historic settlement of Fort Steele . . .”. Today Fort Steele is an important landmark in southeast British Columbia, drawing 80,000 visitors annually.
In 1925 Fort Steele was designated a
National Historic Site.
The fort, established in 1887 as the first North West Mounted Police post in British Colombia, was strategically located on a bluff overlooking the Kootenay River.
From Historic Places Canada