Greenwood Smelter - Greenwood, BC
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 49° 04.752 W 118° 41.084
11U E 376972 N 5437627
Two heritage markers, a replica smokestack from the smelter, and an interpretive sign reside on a small side road on the east side of Highway 3, just south of the old West Kootenay Power & Light Substation on the southern edge of Greenwood.
Waymark Code: WMGN2F
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 03/22/2013
Views: 5
Though the Greenwood Smelter lived a longer and more profitable life than the ill fated Boundary Falls Smelter nearby, it nonetheless still lived a comparatively short life in commercial terms. Completed in 1901, it fell silent in 1918, a scant 17 years later, a victim of plummeting copper prices after the war.
In its lifetime, however, it made quite a stir, spawning the City of Greenwood, which grew to a population of over 3,000 at its peak, then as quickly imploded to as few as 200 citizens soon after the smelter closed. Greenwood was incorporated as a city in 1897 and remains a city - the smallest in Canada, both in population and area - now with a population of less than 700.
Unlike many of its late brethren, this smelter has left behind a few reminders of its heyday - The 210 foot tall smokestack, the old power substation which fed electricity to the smelter and a vast black slag pile which stretches south along the highway from Greenwood, among others.