On our way back from Molson, WA, we stopped in Greenwood and found the road that leads up to the remains of the smelter used at the turn of the century. The following descriptive text was found on a web site after doing a search for "Greenwood smelter KVR":
The City of Greenwood was incorporated in 1897. By 1899, the population had reached 2,000. The city boasted many fine hotels, an opera house, a newspaper, and countless other stores, services and businesses that served the other mining camps in the region, such as Eholt (Midway), Boundary Falls, Phoenix, and Deadwood. Two smelters were built at the turn of the century . Greenwood smelter prospered, processing copper-gold ore from the nearby Motherlode Mine and other mines in the west Kootenay. The smelter's 120 foot brick smoke stack is one of the few surviving in the province and is surrounded by mounds of black slag that once glowed red hot. By 1910 the mining boom had peaked, with both Greenwood and nearby Phoenix enjoying steady business. However, copper prices soon plummeted, the market died, and by 1918, Greenwood was virtually deserted. With the onset of WWII, Greenwood was home to displaced Japanese Canadians, interned in the vacant houses left in the town after the mines closed, saving Greenwood from being a ghost town.

[Go to the previous directory] ../