A sawmill located on the shore of Peanut Lake burned in June 1946, less than a decade after it was built. (Osoyoos and District Museum and Archives)

Fire from a burning sawmill lit up the sky in Osoyoos on the night of June 3, 1946.

The sawmill was located on the east side of Peanut Lake, as it is officially called, though locals often know it as “Peanut Pond.”

The sawmill was built by the Jorde brothers of Greenwood, but in September 1945 it was purchased by a newly organized company of local citizens, known as Osoyoos Sawmills Ltd.

An original sawmill was started in 1936 on the east side of Osoyoos Lake by N.W. Barnett of Bridesville, who had been operating a portable mill on Anarchist Mountain, according to The Story of Osoyoos, by George J. Fraser.

Barnett ran into financial difficulties and in 1937, the Jorde brothers took over that mill from Barnett’s creditors.

They found the lake too shallow and the site too muddy, so after a couple seasons, they moved to the Peanut Lake location.

At the new location, the small mill had a daily capacity of 12,000 to 15,000 board feet.

When fire erupted around 10 p.m. on Monday, June 3, 1946, it destroyed the buildings, the mill and lumber. Only an office was spared.

The site, close to the Osoyoos centre, had been considered an eyesore, and this was one of several reasons the company chose to rebuild in a new, more spacious location – on the shores of Osoyoos Lake about three kilometres north of the village.

In its new location, it was plagued by further problems. Twice, heavy winds snapped the log boom, each time scattering thousands of logs around the lake, where they washed up on beaches.

Then the company’s manager embezzled several thousand dollars.

Nonetheless, the mill recovered and for a while was a thriving business.

Peanut Lake is not a natural lake, but rather was a depression or kettle created by glaciation.

“It came into existence following the magic-like transformation of the district from a sage bush area to intensively planted orchard tracts in the late 1920s,” wrote Fraser.

The pond covers about seven acres and its name is derived from its peanut shape.

Your memories:

Last week we featured the Log Building, which was once located where Osoyoos Elementary School is now, and after a couple of moves, is now in the Quonset at the Osoyoos and District Museum and Archives.

We mentioned some of the official roles the building played, but also how it was served as a private residence in the late 1940s.

Iris Tweedy called us to tell how relatives of hers lived in the Log Building at that time.

Her brother-in-law Joe Tweedy and his wife Dot lived there with their baby son, Greg.

At the time, the building was on more of a hill, and only in later years when the school was built was the hill flattened and large amounts of earth moved, she said.

There were no houses below the hill and Joe had to hike down to get water from the lake and haul it up again in pails.

“I would say at the very least, twice a day,” she said.

“They had no water or lights and they had a baby,” she said. “I don’t know how long they were there, but they were pretty hard up. It was pretty hard to get a place at that time.”

Tweedy said she has a painting of the Log Building in its original location done by long-time resident and artist Dorothy Fairbairn.

She said Fairbairn wrote on the back about the many roles the building had in Osoyoos, but she didn’t know about the Tweedy family living there.

“Sometimes people forget the Tweedys were in that place,” she said. “They aren’t in the history. Just all the other [uses of the building].”

Do you remember the sawmill on Peanut Lake and the fire that destroyed it? Do you remember what caused the fire?

Please comment at OsoyoosTimes.com or on Facebook. You can reach Editor Richard McGuire by email at [email protected] or by phone at 250-495-7225.

RICHARD McGUIRE

Osoyoos Times