Fun in the orchard!

Some people had already decided that this was a fine place to settle down. In 1887 James Gartrell and his family traveled all the way from Ontario bringing with them apple tree plantings; they started the first commercial orchard. Eventually a townsite grew on the lakeshore where the sternwheeler boats docked delivering people and supplies to the blossoming community and exporting various fruits to market. Summerland was incorporated in 1906 and it wasn’t long before the lakeside town ran out of growing room and homes and businesses began appearing “up on the flat.” Developer J. C. Ritchie promoted that area then called West Summerland, the present-day townsite.

Baptist Church - West Summerland

The early years were very prosperous as the young trees started to bear fruit. A school district was formed (1903) and there was a college built in 1907, Okanagan College, a Baptist institution. Electricity for the community and a water system for much needed irrigation were in place early in the town’s history and there was even a local telephone company operating by 1907! The Dominion Experimental Farm was established in Summerland in 1914 to assist the fledgling fruit industry. By 1915, the CPR lake service would be complimented by the Kettle Valley Railway with a station at West Summerland.

In the mid-1950’s the main highway through the Okanagan was rerouted, therefore by-passing the lakeside townsite and through time, fires and slides affected much of its business section. In 1964, the main post office was moved to West Summerland and the “West” was dropped.

Many fine homes were built in the early fruit-ranching period and many remain. One prominent architectural style was popular in those years —Tudor Revival with its decorative “mock timbering”. As the downtown business centre aged, the buildings’ facades were refurbished in a similar style producing the Okanagan’s “Old English Town”.

Click here for the history of Giant's Head Mountain or for the story of how our Museum came to be.