Hutton nestles in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains about north-northeast of the Grand Canyon of the Fraser, in central British Columbia. Moxley Creek, a tributary on the northeast side of the Fraser River, passes to the southwest. The former mill and village site is private property, whose owners remain the sole occupants. Surviving structures are some concrete foundations of mill buildings and the railway water tower (relocated from beside the tracks).
Transportation A trackside signpost marks the flag stop for Via Rail's Jasper – Prince Rupert train. The immediate Via Rail stops are Sinclair Mills to the northwest and Longworth to the southeast.
The station was formerly known as Hutton Mills.
History Railway Hutton, like Dewey to its northwest, and Longworth to its southeast, was an original train station (1914) on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway1914 Timetable. p. 4. (the Canadian National Railway after nationalization). Named by Sir Alfred Smithers, chair of the GTP board, his reason for choosing the name is unknown.
Forestry In 1913, William (Bill) A. Willits (Willots alternate spelling), who owned a number of timber limits on the upper Fraser,Prince George Herald, 9 Jul 1915 established a sawmill. However, the reference to its 80,000-foot per shift capacityPrince George Citizen, 24 May 1961 is clearly a confusion with the 1917 mill built by the Grain Growers' Grain Company (GGGC), an enterprise on the cusp of merging with the Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company (AFCEC) to form the United Grain Growers (UGG). The company had acquired a significant local timber limit in 1913,Prince George Star, 30 Mar 1917 or possibly 1911. Since the millpond, created by damming Wolf Creek, was from the closest point on the Fraser, using the river to float logs to the mill was not an option. Instead, the company acquired a 47-ton shay locomotive and laid trackage for its standard gauge logging railway. Facing a similar predicament, Giscome Spruce Mills (GSM) would also choose this hauling mode that equally proved uneconomic for the low timber volumes per acre. In spring 1918, the sawmill and planing mill began production. By January of the following year, UGG employed 300 millworkers and loggers in the area.Prince George Citizen, 17 Jan 1919
Union activity swept the region during the post-war period. In April 1919, to guard against sabotage, the mill restricted employee access to the property outside normal working hours, and engaged armed security that had the powers of special constables. In October, guided by mill manager Mark DeCew (DeCue alternate spelling), a party accompanying the Duke of Devonshire, governor-general 1916–21, viewed the facility.Prince George Citizen, 1 Oct 1919 The Lumber Workers Industrial Union targeted the railway tie camps during this era. In March 1920, the union won some gains from management at the UGG logging camps near Hutton. However, these were not binding contracts and had little lasting impact.
The narrow strip of accessible spruce forest bordering the railway that stretched some east of Prince George was known as the East Line. In the 1920s, with logging limited to the winter and fall seasons to facilitate the hauling of logs over snow and ice, loggers were transient. However, year round work existed in sawmill towns such as Giscome, Aleza Lake, Hutton, Penny and Longworth. Injury and death were common in sawmills and logging camps.Prince George Citizen: 23 Jul 1918, 20 Sep 1918, 31 Dec 1918, 24 Jan 1919 & 29 Oct 1920
The company soon discovered its original strategy of selling lumber directly to Prairie farmers (UGG shareholders) was flawed. Ordering carloads in advance was inconvenient for farmers, and prairie lumber dealers refused to handle the product, because it circumvented their own distribution channels. UGG also realized the mill was poorly located, servicing stands of extremely knotted cedar and hemlock, and the lumber operations were incurring a $78,352 loss annually by 1922.Prince George Leader, 30 Nov 1922 From 1921, the company logged at Eaglet Lake, east of Giscome.Prince George Citizen: 21 Jun 1923, 27 Dec 1923 & 14 May 1925 That year, logs scattered along the lakeshore when a boom holding two million feet of UGG logs broke loose. A legal action followed when suspicions arose as to whether GSM was keeping an accurate count of the UGG logs it was milling.Prince George Citizen, 10 Nov 1922 When GSM fenced off a road passing through one of its logging lots to block UGG access, the courts quashed the action, because it was a public thoroughfare.Prince George Citizen, 26 Jan 1923 Using a donkey engine and cables at a facility east of Giscome station, the UGG could load two trainloads daily for transportation via the CNR line. In mid-1923, a log-carrying train was arriving daily at Hutton.Prince George Citizen, 28 Jun 1923 That year, the mill was producing 80,000 feet of lumber each day. A planned new dry lumber shed, with a one-million-foot storage capacity, would increase efficiencyPrince George Citizen, 21 Jun 1923 by replacing the dry kilns in operation from the beginning. When the company reduced wage rates the following year, a number of employees quit.Prince George Citizen, 3 Jul 1924
The 1925 fire completely destroyed the UGG sawmill, but the planer, a portable sawmill, and lumber yard, were saved.Prince George Citizen, 14 May 1925 Until this time, it joined Giscome and Sinclair Mills as the dominant mills on the East Line. Initially, the horses were sold.Prince George Citizen: 21 May 1925 to 3 Sep 1925 Choosing not to rebuild, UGG sold off its logs, lumber, machinery and equipment.Prince George Citizen: 4 to 25 Mar 1926; 23 Dec 1926 to 9 Jun 1927; 16 Jun 1927 to 18 Aug 1927; & 25 Aug 1927 to 16 Feb 1928 During the 1925/26 winter, Etter & McDougall logged in the vicinity of Hutton.Prince George Citizen, 22 Oct 1925 By early 1928, UGG had shipped out its remaining lumber and closed down all operations. That winter, Jack Turnbull (probably 1878–1964) ran an 80-man camp to the west for Sinclair Spruce Mills.Prince George Citizen, 3 Nov 1927 A planer mill and a portable sawmill continued to operate into the 1930s. During World War II, such a mill processed birch for the Tego-bonded plywood and birch veneer of the "Mosquito" warplane.
Charles Howarth (1885–1994), a mechanical draftsman, managed the construction of grain elevators in Alberta and Saskatchewan for the AFCEC. In 1921, the company appointed him general manager of the Hutton mill.Prince George Citizen: 29 Apr 1921, 13 Oct 1922, 26 Apr 1923, 14 Feb 1924, 27 Nov 1924, 13 Aug 1925 & 3 Dec 1925 On leaving, he acquired and ran the Arrow Lakes Lumber Co. at Nakusp 1927–36, but the business succumbed to the Great Depression.Boudreau, Clarence & Olga. (2003). Into the Mists of Time. Self-published, p. 17 A partner in the Babine Lumber Co. at Burns Lake from the late 1930s, he purchased the Guilford Lumber Co. in 1943.
In 1974, Northwood donated a pioneer steam donkey and a pole railway car, recovered from Hutton, to the Prince George Railway & Forestry Museum. The car once carried logs stacked in a triangular formation upon a track formed from poles laid end-to-end.Prince George Citizen, 10 Oct 1974
Community The community held regular dances in its early years.Prince George Citizen: 9 Aug 1918 & 5 Jul 1923 The post office, which opened at the Hutton Mills in 1917, assumed the sawmill name. William (Bill) A. Willits was postmaster 1917–18. Consequently, the school,Prince George Citizen, 8 Jun 1953 and later electoral district,Prince George Citizen: 16 Jun 1949; 16 Jun 1952; 8 & 11 Jun 1953; 4, 6, 20 & 27 Jan 1955; 7 Feb 1955; 26 Feb 1960; 31 Aug 1960; 13 Sep 1960; & 1 Oct 1963 took that name. Initially, the two names were used interchangeablyPrince George Citizen: 7 & 17 Jan 1919 for the village and surrounding area, but Hutton was used predominantly. However, pioneer rural families, such as the Chance generations, consistently described themselves as from Hutton Mills,Prince George Citizen: 10 Jul 1924; 20 Aug 1925 to 17 Sep 1925; 9 Mar 1939; 4 Sep 1941; 14 Oct 1943 to 18 Nov 1943; 3 Oct 1946; 12 Feb 1948; 3 & 10 Nov 1949; 12 Feb 1951; & 23 Jan 1956 whereas outsiders usually considered them as from Hutton.Prince George Citizen: 21 May 1931, 11 Jan 1940, 4 & 25 Jul 1940, 22 May 1941, 2 Oct 1941, 10 Feb 1944, 20 Apr 1944, 11 May 1944, 6 Jul 1944, 21 & 28 Dec 1944, 22 Mar 1945, 17 May 1945, 16 Aug 1945, 24 Jan 1946, 21 Mar 1946, 16 May 1946, 8 Aug 1946, 4 Sep 1947 & 1 Jan 1948 Since the postal area officially changed to the latter in 1960, Hutton Mills has been rarely used.Prince George Citizen: 27 Jul 1961; 4 to 6 Dec 1961; 31 Mar 1989 to 11 Aug 1989; & 9 Nov 1985
Population estimates were 175 (Wrigley) to 300 (Rev. W.J. Patton)Prince George Citizen, 26 Aug 1958 for 1918, and 275 (Wrigley) to 400 (Dep. Insp. Parsons) for 1919. A school, store, and hospital existed. When the school opened that year, S. Oswald Harries (1886–1981) taught the 31 students. Church services were held in the schoolhouse,Prince George Citizen, 28 May 1919 as were dances. The 1926 student body numbered 28. During the 1920s, a laundry and bakery also operated.
By 1920, unlike Prince George, the hospital possessed an X-ray machine.Prince George Citizen, 11 Jun 1920 Dr. Rex E. Page was district medical health officer.Prince George Citizen, 3 Sep 1920 Dr. Wilfrid Laishley (1900–60) then headed the hospital until his transfer to Giscome as district medical officer and coroner.Prince George Citizen: 3 Apr 1924, 3 Jun 1926, 7 Oct 1926, 12 Jan 1928 & 8 Nov 1928 Dr. G.E. Bayfield (1874–1947) took over the daily routinePrince George Citizen, 5 Jul 1923 until Dr. J.W. Lang became district medical officer.Prince George Citizen: 2 Apr 1925, 28 May 1925 & 4 Jun 1925 When Coroner Laishley held the inquest into the death of James Brown, whose body was found in an unused stable near Hutton, the verdict was death from natural causes.Prince George Citizen, 3 Jun 1926
Percy Moore (1871–1954) ran the mill's general store. Accompanied by wife Lois (1875–1968), and daughter Ruth (c.1912–?), he relocated to Stuart in 1920, where he opened the first store and became postmaster.Prince George Citizen, 22 Apr 1954 The destination was renamed Finmoore in 1923, which combined the names of postmaster Moore, and pioneer farmer Ronald Finlaison (1875–1948).
Arthur E.C. Read (1888–1945) (Reid alternate spelling), formerly and later at Longworth, was the mill purchasing agent and store manager for three years.Prince George Citizen: 7 & 28 Jun 1945 Although he was regarded as postmaster, because he performed these duties, T.J. Largue (1886–1961) company accountant,Prince George Citizen: 22 Mar 1921 to 10 May 1921; & 2 Apr 1925 officially held the title 1918–26. Read was the recognized guide for big game hunters within the area.Prince George Citizen, 13 Sep 1921 Following a movie showing by Levi Graham of Prince George in 1922, the Hutton orchestra supplied the music for a dance.
The population largely dispersed after the 1925 fire. The estimated 800–1,000 peak appears to be grossly inflated. By 1928, about 65 people remained, before levelling at 30.
While the men remained to fight the severe 1927 forest fire, a flagged freight train temporarily evacuated the women and children from Longworth, and the largely vacated Hutton accommodated many of the evacuees.Prince George Citizen: 25 Aug 1927 & 1 Sep 1927 Once the sawmill closed, the company pool hall, general store and hospital contents were sold.Prince George Citizen: 25 Aug 1927 to 16 Feb 1928 A Chinese laundry existed at this time. Mrs. Winifred Mary Grogan (1896–1991) opened a general store, and became postmaster 1928–29, a role commonly performed by a storeowner in such towns. The post office closed in 1929, re-opened in 1937, and closed for good in 1959.