This was the first Bank of Montreal built in British Columbia, having been built in 1896, at the height of the silver boom in the Slocan area of BC. This building, then, is a perfect choice of location for a local history museum as it lived to witness most of the ups and downs in the history of the Silvery Slocan. Its vault even held much of the silver which came out of the area's mines.
New Denver itself is in the Slocan Valley but the silver strikes occurred to the east in the Sandon area. New Denver, being on a railroad and a navigable lake, became a transportation and supply centre and a jumping off point to the Sandon area. As a result, the Bank of Montreal built its first BC bank here, to cash in on the silver boom.
New Denver also has the dubious distinction of being the site of one of the internment centres created to imprison those of Japanese extraction, whether Canadian citizens or not, during World War II. Of the many internment camps in the interior of BC during WW II, the New Denver camp, known then as “The Orchard” internment camp, was the only one not bulldozed immediately after the war. Some of the houses built in the camp were inhabited as late as 1985.
The Silvery Slocan Historical Society, operators of the museum, was incorporated April 28, 1971. The New Denver Visitor Centre is also housed within the former bank.
Just outside the door to the bank/museum/visitor centre is this wooden sign (which disappeared for a couple years and has mysteriously reappeared) relating a smattering of the history of the Village of New Denver.
NEW DENVER
THIS WAS THE TOWN KNOWN AS ELDORADO.
LATER IT BECAME NEW DENVER WHEN IT
WAS FORECAST IT WOULD BECOME GREATER
THAN ITS NAMESAKE, DENVER, COLORADO.
BY 1893, NEW DENVER WAS ESTABLISHED AS THE
WESTERN GATEWAY TO THE SILVER COUNTRY.
CLOSE BY, SILVER-LEAD PROPERTIES LIKE THE MOUNTAIN
CHIEF, ALPHA, CALIFORNIA, ALAMO, AND OTHERS
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GENERAL PROSPERITY OF THE
TOWN. TO THE EAST, SANDON, WHITEWATER, THREE
FORKS, CODY, AND OTHER MINING TOWNS BECKONED.
TODAY, THE ORIGINAL BANK
OF MONTREAL AND A DOZEN OTHER BUILDINGS FROM
THE TURN OF THE CENTURY STAND AS MUTE
REMINDERS OF THE DAYS WHEN THIS TOWN
WAS CONSIDERED THE NEW ELDORADO.
From the Bank of Montreal Heritage Marker