YOU ASKED: Why did North Kamloops start naming streets numerically from Seventh Street to 14th Street? What happened to First Street through Sixth Street?

— MJ

OUR ANSWER: Well, it was bound to happen at some point, though we had hoped not quite so soon. We simply can’t track down an answer to this question.

It appears to have been lost with time.

We asked everyone we could think of — long-time North Shore residents, former politicians from the North Shore and Brocklehurst, City of Kamloops staff, community historians, you name it. They were all stumped on the question of North Shore street names.

“It’s a difficult one,” said Pierre Pouliotte, the City’s traffic planner. “There are no people here who have that history anymore.”

History, of course, is the bailiwick of Elisabeth Duckworth.

She’s in charge of Kamloops Museum and Archives, and her mind alone is a valued storehouse of information.

Ask her to name every former mayor and she’ll do it from memory. Ask her how Riverside Park came to be and she’ll recount every step of its birth.

But, when it comes to the history behind the North Shore’s numerical street names, it was a question even Duckworth couldn’t answer.

So we tried some other folks, who were as equally pleasant to talk to and genuinely eager to help us hunt down the answer.

Peter Mutrie, of the North Shore Business Improvement Association, suggested we call senior members of the community, such as former Kamloops mayor Cliff Branchflower.

Branchflower was stumped on the history of those particular street names. “I’m afraid that pre-dates me,” he said. “But you might try Gordon Bregoliss. He used to be on (North Kamloops) town council.”

Bregoliss served on North Kamloops council in 1965, two years prior to its amalgamation with the south shore of Kamloops.

“How they named the streets, I’m at a loss myself,” said Bregoliss.

“But I’ll tell you who might know is Al Thompson, the former mayor of Brocklehurst.”

Indeed, Thompson knew plenty about the history of Brocklehurst, which used to be its own municipality until becoming part of Kamloops in 1973.

But the query on the numerical street names that straddled Brock and North Kamloops had him stumped, too.

“I have no idea,” said Thompson.

“That’s a good question.”

Thompson, Bregoliss and Branchflower are seniors, but the street-naming era of North Kamloops and Brocklehurst pre-dates all three.

Which brings up a good point raised by local history buff Ray Jolicoeur. He wonders how much of our community’s history has disappeared with the passing of community elders.

“If we don’t start asking people questions,” he said, “we’re going to run out of people who can give us the answers we need from one generation to the next.”

If anyone knows the history of street names on the North Shore, please call our Readers’ Reporter, Catherine Litt, at 250-371-6149 or send an email to editor@kamloopsnews.ca.

We’d love to solve this mystery.