Crazy Creek Hot Pools and Resort worth a visit
Until the late 1950s, before the Rogers Pass highway was constructed, the road from the Okanagan Valley to Revelstoke didn’t have a lot of traffic, particularly in the winter when the Big Bend highway was closed.
On one trip to Revelstoke, I stopped at Crazy Creek, to take a picture of the falls, with ice on everything.
Crazy Creek is just past Craigellachie, the site of the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
At that time, I was not aware that there had been a town there, only knowing the name “Taft.”
It was only recently that I learned more about this place.Years ago, Taft was a sawmill town and also a turnaround spot for pusher engines that helped trains climb Eagle Pass, west of Revelstoke.
It seems that an old piece of the road to Revelstoke is now called “Taft Road.”
Eastbound, it branches to the right about 400 feet before Crazy Creek bridge.
It crosses the Canadian Pacific Railway main line then parallels it to where Crazy Creek joins the Eagle River.
There is no bridge, but the road continues on the other side, to join Highway 1 (Trans Canada) further on.
By the way, at the Taft Road crossing the train whistles blow, even when the road is closed due to snow and is completely impassable.
The location of the old town of Taft, now just two or three building foundations, is in the campground of the Crazy Creek Resort, on the north side of the railway, and one foundation on the south side. Books placed in each unit at the Crazy Creek Resort describe the Taft townsite in the early twentieth century: two rooming houses, several single family homes, a store, church and the railway station.
Further east, near where Crazy Creek and the Eagle River merge, was the sawmill’s site.
When walking along a trail from the campground a few years ago, I came upon the old sawmill building.
It loomed up out of a mess of standing and fallen trees, with dusk falling at the time.
I thought that it might be a good spot for a television show, about ghosts or murders.
The sawmill’s concrete walls are about 20 feet high and other nearby concrete blocks were apparently the bases for machinery, etc.
Later, the resort owners built a trail to the sawmill building and cleared away the fallen trees, making it more accessible.
The Taft sawmill had a large band saw which was run by water power.
The water which provided this power came out of Crazy Creek above the falls, through a 14 inch wood stave pipe.
Pressure at the mill was 120 pounds per square inch. Electrical power for the town of Taft was provided by the same means.
There are now hiking trails above the falls, where the remnants of the old wood stave pipes can still be seen.
Logs for the Taft sawmill came from the valley of Crazy Creek, carried on a logging train.
It must have been quite a steep grade, as the hill on that side of the valley goes up at a sharp angle.
The logging locomotive used was a gear drive Climax, driving on all wheels. Comparing it to other locomotives is like comparing a Jeep to a car.
The Taft sawmill ran from around the turn of the last century to 1918. I expect that the town of Taft faded away after that.
For many years, the site of town of Taft was sort of hidden from the highway by a wall of trees, with a gap opposite the end of the Canadian Pacific Railway wye (a triangle of railroad track, used for turning locomotives or trains).
Some buildings were visible behind the trees, which I later discovered had been a fish hatchery.
When the hatchery shut down, the property was sold to the Crazy Creek Resort.
These buildings were turned into motel-like units, a suspension bridge was built across the falls on the north side of the highway, geothermally heated pools were put in on the south side, and eventually an overhead pedestrian bridge was built across the highway.
Crazy Creek Hot Pools and Resort is a fine facility and, if your hobby is “ghost-towning”, “hot-springing” or just plain camping, then it is certainly a good place to go for a visit.
This article is part of a series, submitted by the Kelowna Branch, Okanagan Historical Society.