Thomas Greenhow met Cornelius O'Keefe and Thomas Wood in 1866 at The Dalles in Oregon, after O'Keefe and Wood had completed a cattle drive to the gold rush at the Big Bend of the Columbia River.
On the second drive, the three partners travelled up the west side of Okanagan Lake following the old Hudson's Bay Company Brigade Trail, camping at the head of the lake in June 1867. However, instead of pushing on to Kamloops as they had originally intended, they saw the tremendous potential in the land surrounding their camp, and took up pre-emptions.
After Wood sold out to Greenhow in 1871 and took up ranching at Wood Lake, Greenhow and O'Keefe improved and expanded their ranches. Every penny they earned went toward the acquisition of more land. O'Keefe eventually acquired all the land between Swan Lake and Okanagan Lake extending south to the Vernon arm of Okanagan Lake. Greenhow purchased the land on the eastern side of Swan Lake extending south.
O'Keefe sold 10 acres adjacent to his cabin to Greenhow for $50 an acre, where Greenhow built his house. The young men lived and worked amicably together for 10 years, extending their boundaries and working in a spirit of friendly rivalry. Thomas married Elizabeth Coughlan, a niece of O'Keefe’s in 1877.
The first steamboat on Okanagan Lake was named for the only daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Greenhow. The Mary Victoria Greenhow, built by Captain Thomas Dolman Shorts and Thomas Greenhow, was launched in April 1886.
After O'Keefe built his new house in 1886, Greenhow was moved to build one even bigger, but he died in 1889, probably of a stroke, before construction began. Only 51, he is buried in the O'Keefe Ranch cemetery.
Elizabeth, a capable woman and an efficient manager, finished the new 21-room house for the huge sum of $24,000, and continued farming the vast Greenhow holdings for several years after her husband's death, with the help of a foreman, Sam O'Neal. O'Neal later married Mary Victoria, and Elizabeth built a fine house for them near Vernon. Known as the Vernon Lodge, that house, too, cost $24,000, and stood on the site of the present Vernon Lodge Hotel.
Elizabeth Greenhow sold most of the ranch, 8,906 acres, to the Land and Agricultural Company of Canada (L&A) in 1907 for $315,000. She moved to California in 1926, and died there in 1941, age 87.
Born in Vernon, Terry Hurst has had a life-long passion for Vernon’s history. She is author of Vernon and District Pioneer Routes, the stories behind the area’s street names, published by the Vernon Branch of the Okanagan Historical Society in 1996. Watch for future columns recounting the origins of road and street names in the BX, Coldstream and Okanagan Landing.
