BLAKEBURN

BLAKEBURN
Is ghost town, perched on Granite Creek, just north of Princeton. Blakeburn was a mining town that was established in 1911, by owners W.J. Blake Wilson and Pat Burns, who was a former Canadian senator and meat-packer for the P. Burns & Company Limited, a meat company. The mine was famous for its aerial tramway that carried coal to the railhead at the nearby community of Coalmont. The mine also had turbulent times particularly in August of 1930 when an explosion in the mine killed 45 men and is known as British Columbia’s worst mining disasters, a plaque in Coalmont tells this story. The mine closed in 1940 due to fluctuating and dwindling production and because many residents decided to move away to other mining communities near and far. In order to get into Blakeburn, travel along a Forest Service Road from Granite City, which is another ghost town in its own right, and you’ll find several buildings in ruins, including an old bathhouse, washhouse, school and even the old terminal that housed the tramway line, which is basically an old and large block of concrete that is still standing as of today.