As the name suggests, Coalmont was a coal-mining town. The British Columbia mainland, across the straits from Vancouver Island, was proclaimed a Crown Colony on November 19, 1858. It was just prior to this date that an open out-cropping of coal was discovered along the banks of the Similkameen River. The vein was fully exposed. It was said the vein could have been set afire with a match. Some wondered why a bolt of lightening had not already done so years ago. As time passed, it was the Canadian Pacific Railroad that gave the town some permanence. The C.P.R. became the town's major customer, buying coal for its steam engines. A large coal mining operation was started on the mountain directly above nearby Coalmont. All went well until August 13, 1930. It was known the quality of coal made it unsafe to stockpile because of spontaneous combustion. It was on that date the provinces worst disaster occurred. An explosion killed 48 miners. All were buried in the local cemetery. The youngest was 19 years old and the oldest 36. ---

Re. Coalmont BC. The comments section included for Coalmont BC actually describes the small collier community of Blakeburn, 4 to 5 miles s-sw of Coalmont. Nothing of the town survived the salvagers of the 1940s, save a few of the tram towers that transported the coal to the Coalmont tipple. Coalmont was the shipping point for the product output of Blakeburn ,and is still a living, if sleepy, community. More extensive information is accessible from the book Blakeburn-From Dust To Dust by Don Blake and published by Snookum Publications, Penticton BC.