| It was just an old Hotel Key, bought in a Summerland Antique Store.
Maybe it came from where it said on the Key but maybe it was just an old hotel key? One hopes that at sometime it may prove to be what you hope it is! Years passed after acquiring this little piece of history from an old long forgotten town. This old Gold Camp had been the biggest producer of Gold in the province but today nothing remains but a few old piles of Grey wood and some very deep water-filled holes. So when I saw an old key from the Cariboo Hotel in Camp McKinney my heart skipped a beat. Was this really from the old town or did someone just add some white letters on an old key to increase it's value. Well after owning the key for a few years the answer came from an unexpected source. Here's what I found... |
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| Cord Northcote and 1 visited Dorothy and Alan Bradbeer of Penticton, who had important roles in the first bottle club in BC that was known as
"The Historical Bottle Collectors Association of BC". It began in Penticton back in 1967. Now in their eighties, Dorothy and Alan welcomed us into their home. Alan served as club President and Dorothy was at various times Secretary and Treasurer. They recalled some of the more notable members who are no longer with us-Doug Parsons and Andy Nemeth of Keremeos, for instance. There were about 60 members, including a few from the Lower Mainland and the Kootenays, including author Ruth Masse from Creston who passed away in 1998. The Bradbeers recalled at least one member from Vancouver Island, the late Colin McIntosh. Interestingly, Bill Barlee was not a member, although he was widely respected as a school teacher in Penticton at the time. It was Barlee who advised the Bradbeers that "an artifact without reference to it origin was of little historic interest". From that point forward, Alan began writing the year and location that the bottle was dug, on the base in white letters. Perhaps you have one of these bottles in your collection! Alan said that he considers Bill "an amazing person" and he is sad to hear of his current long term illness. Both the Bradbeers worked and raised their family, but found time on weekends to visit many of the well known ghost towns in the 1960s and 70s. They often found that Americans had been there years before, in places like Sandon, Granite Creek, Yale and Camp McKinney. Even remote areas like Seymour City at Shushwap Lake were dug out. They had better luck at Fariview and old Keremeos, good spots for Red Cross Breweries and Doering and Marstrand bottles such as what Dorothy and Alan are shown holding in the photograph above, taken at their new home. At Granite Creek they remembered there were a lot of embossed American beer bottles. They often dug with Ron and Doris Taylor. Ron was a conductor for the Kettle Valley Railway and Doris owned a rock shop in Penticton. At Camp McKinney, Alan recalls finding a stone bake oven in the hills, well away from the main town area. The Bradbeers also had good luck at the smallest of ghost towns for instance, Bradshaw with it's hotel on the railway about five miles from Hedley, and at Volcanic City near Grand Forks. They once owned a Wallhachin Codd marble bottle, purchased near Kamloops. Later on they began corresponding with the Kamloops Museum to see if there was any information available about the firm. The HBCA of BC also held annual shows in Penticton and at Keremeos. The club folded in 1976, and Alan believes the club newsletters were donated to the museum in Oliver. The Bradbeers recently moved from their old home and sold off much of their collection to a local antique dealer, due to space concerns. Thanks to the Fraser Valley Antiques & Collectables Club, for permission to reprint this article. |
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