La Porte was a
boomtown
A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although ...
in
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, during the
Big Bend Gold Rush The Big Bend Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Big Bend Country of the Colony of British Columbia (now a Canadian province) in the mid-1860s.
History Discovery & early miners
In 1861, the gold commissioner at Rock Creek reported a First Nations ...
.
The site at the foot of the
Dalles des Morts Dalles des Morts, also known as Death Rapids in English, was a famously violent stretch of the Columbia River upstream from Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada, now submerged beneath the waters of the Lake Revelstoke Reservoir. Despite the name, ...
, or Death Rapids, was chosen as the location of a ferry and town on April 23, 1866, during the first voyage of the steamboat ''
Forty-Nine'' up the
Columbia River
The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...
.
The name reflected its role as the gateway to the mines.
By 1871, engineer
Walter Moberly returned from a survey trip to report that a single resident remained at La Porte. And by 1885 all of the houses were in ruins.
References
{{coord missing, British Columbia
Ghost towns in British Columbia