Botanical Glossary - Home

Mountain with a view!

Overlooking Okanagan Lake and the city of Penticton from Munson Mountain viewpoint - July 06, 2010

A photographer basking in the sunshine of a hot Okanagan afternoon perched upon a rock overlooking the PENTICTON sign emblazoned upon Munson Mountain in huge, white, cement letters visible from most places in the Okanagan Valley near Penticton. The Okanagan Lake's south end with Penticton Yacht Club Marina and lake side resorts, as well as the SS Sicamouse moored at the Heritage docks in Penticton.

At the top of the frame to the right is Mount Nkwala at 1020 meters and the Western Bench.

______________________________________________________________

Pen-tic-ton, or snpintktn as translated from the interior Salish language of the Okanagan First Nations, means "a place to live forever" (the commonly accepted translation) or "a place to live year-round".

Tom Ellis, the first Non-Native settler in the area, took the meaning to heart and settled here in 1865. Tom Ellis, from England, planned the formulation of the new town. In 1892, a townsite was laid out around the Smith Street area. The street is now called Front Street, home to many unique stores and boutiques.

Smith Street was named after C.S. Smith, who owned a sawmill and supplied much of the lumber used to construct the original buildings. This was home to many buildings that no longer exist, but which then housed the businesses of the day: Livery barns, blacksmiths, barbershops, bakershops, hotels, etc. A strange, little known fact, was that some of the older, wooden buildings were built on skids and could be moved to a new location by simply hitching them up to a team of horses and dragging them away.

By 1907, Penticton had grown to the bountiful size of 600 residents, and was officially recognized by the British Columbia Government as a municipal district. In the teens, the building of the Kettle Valley Railroad increased the population to around 1500 people. By 1921 the city was 4,000 strong, but it took until 1948 for Penticton to gain City Status.

_____________________________________________________