Article

Armstrong

Published Online November 27, 2007

Last Edited March 4, 2015

Armstrong, BC, incorporated as a city in 1913, population 4815 (2011c), 4241 (2006c). The City of Armstrong is the business centre of a farm and forest economy of the Spallumcheen district. It is at the north end of the Okanagan Valley 23 km N of Vernon and 13 km S of Enderby.

Armstrong, BC, incorporated as a city in 1913, population 4815 (2011c), 4241 (2006c). The City of Armstrong is the business centre of a farm and forest economy of the Spallumcheen district. It is at the north end of the Okanagan Valley 23 km N of Vernon and 13 km S of Enderby. Spallumcheen, a Salish word, has been variously interpreted as meaning "beautiful valley,""flat meadow,""meeting of the waters" and "prairie-banked river."

History

The district was first settled in 1866 by A.L. Fortune and J.B. Burns in Lansdowne, the original townsite. When the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway line was extended S to Okanagan Landing (1891-92) the townsite moved to its present location. The town was named for London financier W.C. Heaton-Armstrong, who raised the bonds for the railway project. Catherine Schubert (1837-1918), the only woman member of the Overlanders of 1862, lived in the district from 1883.

Present Day

Armstrong, once known as "Celery City," has since diversified from grain, livestock and dairy products (from 1938 it has been home of the famous "Armstrong" cheese) to light manufacturing and, since a forest company constructed a mill near town in 1975, lumber and plywood. The Armstrong fall fair, started in 1900, has become western Canada's largest grade B livestock exposition.