Rosemary has been volunteering in the archives room at Haney Heritage Village four years. Her “retirement” job is a special project inputting the District Municipality’s tax records. With each entry is a payment, name, and a legal address for most records that are outside the downtown core. Why are practically all records of properties in the downtown core excluded? That absence is part of the story of our community’s development.
In 1905 the Municipality was formed. A year later, people began paying taxes to the District Municipality of Salmon Arm. A dedicated clerk entered “country” addresses, the legal descriptions for farmland. For downtown lots, he entered “Salmon Arm” in the address line. Why? It probably didn’t seem important. Now, a hundred and four years later, a street address would have been helpful. To complicate matters, Salmon Arm didn’t have house numbers until 1965. But that wasn’t a problem the clerk had a century ago. The town was small and everyone knew everyone and where they lived.
In 1912 the downtown core, a one mile square, became the City of Salmon Arm. It split away from the District Municipality, creating its own civic government. Records separated. When the two municipal governments merged again in 1970, community life was complicated. A joint council governed for one year. The District Municipal office moved to then Village quarters at the Fletcher Park site. Unfortunately, only one set of records, those belonging to the District Municipality, survived. The former “City” records were lost or discarded. In 2002 the District’s ledgers were given to the Salmon Arm Museum’s archives at Haney Heritage Village, trusting the association would safeguard the historic records.
So far Rosemary has 26,525 entered in her tax database. She’d agree that the City records would be equally useful. Who knows? Perhaps they’ll show up in a donation from another source. Things sometimes do.
Thanks Rosemary, for creating a powerful research tool!
Deborah Chapman
