Barnard's Express , later known as the British Columbia Express Company or BX , was a pioneer transportation company that served the Cariboo and Fraser-Fort George regions in British Columbia , Canada from 1861 until 1921.
43-573: (Redirected from Bx ) BX , Bx , and similar may refer to: Businesses and organizations [ edit ] Barnard's Express , a transportation company in British Columbia, Canada Base exchange , a store operated by the Army, Naval, and Air Force Exchange Service Berne eXchange , the stock exchange of Bern, Switzerland Blackstone Group (NYSE stock ticker symbol BX) BookCrossing ,
86-591: A cost of $ 40,000 the BX was raised and patched sufficiently to get her back to Fort George. The BC Express pushed her back upstream through the Fort George Canyon and to the shipyard at Fort George. This would be the first time in the history of sternwheelers that one would push another upriver through a canyon. The BC Express ran until November 1920 and then it joined the BX on the riverbank at Fort George, where their hulls were abandoned., thus ending
129-424: A genericized trademark term for a type of AC armoured electrical cable BeppoSAX catalog, also called SAX and 1SAX Brix ( °Bx ), measurement unit of the dissolved sugar-to-water mass ratio of a liquid Places [ edit ] Belgium , World Meteorological Organization country code Brussels ( French : Bruxelles), the capital of the nation BeNeLux , a politico-economic union of Belgium,
172-482: A large crew of mechanics and drivers had to be kept on staff. In 1913, it cost the company $ 67,233 to maintain their fleet of 8 Wintons. The largest sum went for repairs, but $ 15,835.53 was spent on tires alone. Furthermore the total profits that were made that season was only $ 3,337.23, which the company believed was not a large figure considering the risk and investment involved. At the end of August 1913, Captain Bucey
215-625: A more comfortable ride. In 1876, the company had a stagecoach built in California specifically for the visit of the Governor General , Lord and Lady Dufferin , who rode in it from Yale to Kamloops and back. The coach was painted in the bright red and yellow BX colours and had the Canadian coat of arms on its front panels. It cost $ 50 a day to ride in this famous coach, but many visiting diplomats and English aristocracy rode in
258-508: A program for sharing second-hand books Air Busan (established 2007) (IATA airline code BX) Coast Air (1998–2008) (IATA airline code BX) Vehicles [ edit ] BX (sternwheeler) , a boat owned by Barnard's Express Citroën BX , an automobile Bionix AFV , an infantry fighting vehicle produced in Singapore Science and technology [ edit ] Biology and medicine [ edit ] Biopsy ,
301-451: A rock band from Michigan Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title BX . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=BX&oldid=1253150524 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
344-415: A strict policy that they would not purchase any horses that were broken . The company wanted their horses trained exclusively for staging, a process that generally took three months, even then they were never truly broken and had to be expertly handled. A hostler would lead the teams out to the stages only once the baggage had been secured and the passengers and driver were safely seated. Once harnessed to
387-419: A vehicle. Then the company built a garage and machine shop at Ashcroft and, as there were no service stations , arrangements were also made with Imperial Oil of Vancouver to supply and deliver in drums the gas and oil that the cars would need. The drums were then placed in key locations along the road. The company purchased more vehicles throughout the next few years and all were painted red and yellow,
430-433: A wide variety of stagecoaches. Some only required two horses and were called a "jerky", while others were pulled by four or six horses. Some had enclosed carriages and others were open. For winter travel, the stagecoaches were replaced by sleighs of all sizes, including some that could carry fifteen passengers. Many of the later stagecoaches were Concord stages, built with shock absorbers made from leather springs which made for
473-627: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Barnard%27s Express The company's beginnings date back to the peak of the Cariboo Gold Rush when hordes of adventurers were descending on the Cariboo region. There was a great demand for the transportation of passengers to and from the goldfields, as well as the delivery of mining equipment, food supplies and mail between Victoria and Barkerville . The first express service offered on
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#1732773353905516-570: The BC Express was Joseph Bucey, an experienced Skeena River pilot. On the Skeena, he had piloted the Inlander from Port Essington to Hazelton . The BX made semi-weekly trips from Soda Creek to Fort George, taking two days for the trip upriver and less than a day for the trip back. In 1910, stage fare from Ashcroft to Soda Creek was $ 27.50 and the steamer fare from there to Fort George
559-481: The Cariboo Road was operated by William Ballou in 1858. Others soon followed, usually one or two man operations where the proprietor himself packed the express goods, either on his back or with the help of a trusty mule. In December, 1861, Francis Jones Barnard established a pony express from Yale to Barkerville. The company had originally been owned by William Jeffray and W.H. Thain and had been known as
602-682: The Cariboo riding were among the most pro-Confederation in the colony, and this was in no small part because of the strong Canadian element in the local populace. One reason the Cariboo rush attracted fewer Americans than the original Fraser rush may have been the American Civil War , with many who had been around after the Fraser Gold Rush going home to take sides, or to the Fort Colville Gold Rush which
645-592: The Quesnel Board of Trade, the provincial government granted the BC Express Company a $ 10,000 per year subsidy to continue river navigation from Soda Creek to Fort George. The request was justified because Quesnel and the other communities along the river had been promised a railroad, but the construction on the PGE had slowed to a crawl and would in fact not to be completed to Prince George until 1952. In
688-533: The Board of Railway Commissioners investigate the situation and the Board came back in the company's favour and told the railway they must build the bridge at Mile 141 ( Dome Creek ) and the other in the Bear River area ( Hansard Bridge ) with lift spans as they had promised. The GTP refused the order, stating that if they changed the level of the bridges they'd have to change the level of the grade. The company took
731-586: The Dufferin when they went hunting in the Cariboo. The first horses used by the company came from Oregon . Then, in 1868, 400 head were purchased in California and Mexico and driven to the company's ranch in Vernon . Later, when the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, most of the company's horses were bought locally or were shipped from Alberta or Saskatchewan . The company had
774-526: The Jeffray and Company's Fraser Express. In the summer of 1862, Barnard merged his company into the British Columbia and Victoria Express Company and won the government contract to deliver the mail. In 1863 Barnard incorporated a two-horse wagon on the run from Lillooet to Fort Alexandria . Another freighting company, Dietz and Nelson operated a stagecoach between Victoria, Lillooet and Yale, connecting with Barnard's Express. The BC Express Company had
817-471: The Netherlands, and Luxembourg Berryessa, San Jose, California Bordeaux , France The Bronx , one of the five boroughs of The City of New York, New York, U.S. (also for many institutions, usually in the borough, and named for it) Brunei (LOC MARC code and obsolete FIPS Pub 10-4 and NATO country codes) Other uses [ edit ] BX convoys of World War II ships Battlecross ,
860-699: The area from Lillooet to Yale . Unlike its southern counterpart, the population of the Cariboo Gold Rush was largely British and Canadian , among them 4000 were Chinese, although the first wave of the rush was largely American. By the time the Cariboo rush broke out there was more active interest in the Gold Colony (as British Columbia was often referred to) in the United Kingdom and Canada and there had also been time required for more British and Canadians to get there. The electorate of
903-613: The canyon of the Thompson River to Ashcroft and from there via the valley of the Bonaparte River to join the older route from Lillooet at Clinton . Towns along the Cariboo Road include Clinton, 100 Mile House and Williams Lake , although most had their beginnings before the Cariboo rush began. During the rush, the largest and most important town lay at the road's end at Barkerville, which had grown up around
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#1732773353905946-409: The company's colours. Although the freighting business remained brisk and the cars were a favourite with travelers, they never turned a very large profit for the company. Although private operators could discontinue their services when the road conditions were poor, the BC Express Company had advertised automobile services in all weather conditions from May to October. Fulfilling that promise meant that
989-548: The construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway underway, the sternwheelers were needed to help deliver equipment and food supplies to the work camps. In 1915, the railway insolvent, work ceased. Despite having a monopoly on river traffic, the BX finished the season with a $ 7,000 loss. The BC Express was reserved for special trips. In 1916 and 1917, sternwheelers were not used on the upper Fraser River at all. Then, in 1918, after an appeal from
1032-728: The days of the pioneer transportation company that Francis Barnard had established nearly 60 years earlier. Cariboo Gold Rush The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Colony of British Columbia , which later became the Canadian province of British Columbia . The first gold discovery was made at Hills Bar in 1858, followed by more strikes in 1859 on the Horsefly River , and on Keithley Creek and Antler Creek in 1860. The actual rush did not begin until 1861, when these discoveries were widely publicized. By 1865, following
1075-594: The dominion government, the company continued with legal action which was unsuccessfully appealed as far as the Privy Council in London. Some historians have suggested that the railway built the bridges to impede navigation out of spite and dislike for the BC Express Company because its owner at that time, Charles Vance Millar , had successfully negotiated with the First Nations people at Fort George to buy
1118-461: The extraction of cells or tissues to determine the presence or extent of a disease Bithorax (part of bithorax complex ), a genetic mutation in flies Computing [ edit ] BX register , a general-purpose 16-bit X86 register BitchX , an IRC client Intel 440BX , chipset for Pentium II/Pentium III/III and Celeron processors Bidirectional transformations Other uses in science and technology [ edit ] BX cable ,
1161-567: The land that the GTP wanted for their townsite, forcing the GTP to sell some of that prime property to Millar, which he developed and was later called the Millar Addition . With the completion of the railway on April 7, 1914 and navigation blocked at the Hansard bridge on the route to Tête Jaune Cache, the company ran the BX and the BC Express only from Soda Creek to Fort George. With
1204-427: The main stageline extended from Ashcroft to Barkerville, a distance of 280 miles. Other branch lines led to mining camps and settlements all over the Cariboo. The stage fare from Ashcroft to Barkerville was $ 37.50 in the summer and $ 42.50 in the winter. Passengers who left the train at Ashcroft and boarded a stage at 4am could expect to arrive at 83 Mile House that evening and Barkerville two days later. In 1903 it
1247-468: The meantime, the settlers and farmers needed a way to ship their produce to market and steamer fares were the most reasonable option. The BX ran until August 30, 1919, when she was punctured by an infamous rock called the "Woodpecker" and sank with a 100 tons of bagged cement intended for construction of the Deep Creek Bridge. In the spring of 1920, the salvage work was completed and at
1290-558: The most profitable and famous of the many Cariboo mining camps. The Cariboo Wagon Road was an immense infrastructure burden for the colony but needed to be built to enable access and bring governmental authority to the Cariboo goldfields, which was necessary in order to maintain and assert control of the wealth, which might more easily have passed through the Interior to the United States. The wagon road's most important freight
1333-436: The railway to court for damages and loss of revenue, as they had been earning in excess of $ 5,000 a week on that route, but by the time the case was heard, World War I had begun and the company's attorney was engaged in war work and was unable to appear. His replacement, a junior partner with little experience, was unable to prepare and present the evidence properly and the company lost the case. With no substantive response by
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1376-803: The rest of the province, in particular triggering the Omineca and Cassiar Gold Rushes , just as the Cariboo itself had been found by miners seeking out in search of new finds from the Fraser rush. The boom in the Cariboo goldfields was the impetus for the construction of the Cariboo Wagon Road by the Royal Engineers , which bypassed the older routes via the Fraser Canyon and the Lakes Route (Douglas Road) via Lillooet by using
1419-537: The route from Ashcroft to Soda Creek where they met with the company sternwheelers. These first cars were Winton Sixes purchased from a car manufacturer in Seattle . The BC Express Company purchased two cars at a cost of $ 1,500 each and then added a variety of options such as tops at $ 150, Klaxon horns , $ 50 and kerosene parking lamps, $ 75. The Winton Company also provided two drivers, who were also mechanics, as there were few people who knew how to operate and fix
1462-572: The site of the Hudson's Bay Company's fort of the same name, Alexandria . The Cariboo Gold Rush is the most famous of the gold rushes in British Columbia , so much so that it is sometimes erroneously cited as the reason for the creation of the Colony of British Columbia . The Colony's creation had been prompted by an influx of American prospectors to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush three years earlier in 1858, which had its locus in
1505-422: The stage, the reins were given to the driver and he could release the brake. The stage horses often leaped and reared at the start of a trip, but settled into a smooth trot once they were underway. The whip rarely had to be used to encourage them, as they knew the next station meant a good feed and a warm stable. The stations were approximately 18 miles apart and the teams were changed at each one. The hostlers at
1548-449: The stations took pride in taking care of the company's horses, often competing to see who kept the teams in the best condition. One rule that was strictly followed was that each horse had its own harness, which was cleaned every time it was taken off. To ensure that the horses always had proper shoes, traveling farriers with portable forges visited the stage stations regularly. After the company's headquarters moved to Ashcroft in 1886,
1591-455: The strikes along Williams Creek , the rush was in full swing. Towns grew up, the most famous of these being Barkerville , now preserved as a heritage site and tourist attraction. Other important towns of the Cariboo gold rush era were Keithley Creek , Quesnel Forks or simply "the Forks", Antler, Richfield , Quesnellemouthe (which would later be shortened to Quesnel ), Horsefly and, around
1634-444: Was $ 17.50. Meals were 75 cents and a berth was $ 1.50. The stage freight charge was sixty dollars a ton and the steamer freight charge was forty dollars a ton. In 1910, the company began running automobiles on the Cariboo Road. A few vehicles, owned by private freighters, had been operating on the road since 1907 and the company realized that they needed to add cars to their services in order to stay competitive. These vehicles worked on
1677-727: Was announced that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway would be coming through from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert via the Yellowhead Pass . In anticipation of the influx of new settlers to the region, Charles Millar expanded the company's services into sternwheelers and automobiles and extended the route to Fort George . The company built an office and steamer landing at the new town of South Fort George in 1910. The Royal Mail Ships BX and BC Express were launched in 1910 and 1912 respectively. Both were built by Alexander Watson Jr. at Soda Creek . The BX
1720-411: Was built for the route from Soda Creek to Fort George , whereas the BC Express was built for the route from Fort George to Tête Jaune Cache . The captain of the BX was Owen Forrester Browne , an experienced Fraser River pilot. By the time he took command of the BX in 1910, he was already well known in the area, as he had been the captain of the local sternwheeler Charlotte . The captain of
1763-469: Was largely manned by men who had been on the Fraser or to other BC rushes such as those at Rock Creek and Big Bend . While some of the population that came for the Cariboo rush stayed on as permanent settlers, taking up land in various parts of the Interior in the 1860s and after, that wasn't the general rule for those involved in the Fraser rush. Many veterans of the Cariboo would spread out to explore
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1806-438: Was taking the BC Express up from Fort George to Tête Jaune Cache when he was stopped a cable strung across the river at Mile 141 where the railway was building a bridge. The railway was reneging on their promise not to impede steamer travel on the river. Bucey turned the BC Express back towards Fort George and immediately wired the company's head office at Ashcroft and informed them of the obstruction. The BC Express Company had
1849-592: Was the Gold Escort, which brought government bullion to Yale for shipment to the colonial treasury. Despite the wealth of the Cariboo goldfields, the expense of colonizing the Cariboo contributed to the Mainland Colony's virtual bankruptcy and its forced union with the Island Colony, and similarly into Confederation. A 1976 young adult novel, Cariboo Runaway , by Sandy Frances Duncan , is set in
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