Terrace Regional Historical Society Archive


	*GEORGE LITTLE STORYBOARD: GEORGE LITTLE HOUSE* GEORGE LITTLE: FAMILY MAN, MAN OF VISION, ENTREPRENEUR On March 10th, 1905, George Little, fresh from the Klondike gold fields, walked into the Skeena Valley from Kitamaat. In 1905, the Government had opened up the area for pre-emptions and George Little applied for his 160 acres where Terrace stands today. In the winter of 1905-1906, George built a log cabin on this land. George Little was a man of vision and an entrepreneur. He had many interests which he pursued. The first, his primary accomplishment, was establishment of the village of Terrace. He donated part of his original pre-emption to the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway for a station and grounds - the nucleus for the future village of Terrace. A short time after his arrival in the area, George started a tie-cutting venture for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. This included accomodation for workers and a cookhouse for his hired men. At this time, he enlarged his acreage in the area and called on his relatives to come out west to his town, which he called Littleton. The Government turned down the name ÕLittletonÕ so the new town was surveyed and accepted in 1911 as Terrace, B.C. The new town had wide streets and parks. Some of the streets were named after his family and the community of Atwood, Ontario, where he had been born. He built a compact cottage on Lakelse Avenue and in 1912, on a business trip to Seattle, Washington, met his life-partner, Clara Beste. They were married in Seattle later in that year. He was 34 at the time and started the building of a large lumber mill in Terrace plus a family home on Lakelse Avenue. George Little had many interests. He became the Justice of the Peace, postmaster, and the first Terrace commissioner in 1927. His investments included sawmills, pole yards, mines, a brickyard, cattle, and land sales. He was a cattleman, arborist, mountain climber, gambler, and city planner. After selling his mill in 1936, George became a world traveller again. He died in 1955. Eleven months previously, he had travelled by train to the new industrial town of Kitimat, following much of the same route that he had snowshoed fifty years before.