Robert T. Lowery’s first venture in the newspaper business was in Petrolia, Ontario in 1879 with his two brothers. He was not yet 20 years of age.
They sold that newspaper in 1886. In 1891, he travelled west, first to Vancouver, which was not to his taste. The Slocan beckoned.
In the early 1880s, silver prospectors had congregated at Hot Springs Camp on the west side of Kootenay Lake. The Ainsworth townsite was quickly developed, and a number of mines were soon in operation. In the fall of 1891, Eli Carpenter and John Seaton, departed Ainsworth, and discovered a rich silver deposit on Payne Mountain, above the future site of “The Silver City” of Sandon.
Hundreds of prospectors descended on the Slocan. The silver rush had begun! Within months, 190 claims had been staked. The Payne mine alone yielded one million ounces of silver and lead per year.
By the end of the decade, the “Silvery Slocan” hosted hundreds of mines, and the new towns and cities in the region attracted and accommodated thousands of miners and entrepreneurs. The townsite of Kaslo, also on the west shore of Kootenay Lake, was surveyed in 1891. It quickly became a shipping hub.
Silver ore was transferred from wagons and from the Kaslo and Slocan railway to sternwheelers. Goods and mining supplies arrived by steamer and were shipped inland. Kaslo had a population of 3000 in the spring of 1893.
It was incorporated as a city later in the year. “Colonel” Robert Thornton Lowery was, in fact, not a milit.