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Residents of Merritt had their right to vote for their local government stripped from them for 18 years in the 20th Century.

After defaulting on its debt in 1933, the city was “in the hands of a commissioner” until 1951, according to an article in the Nov. 8, 1951 edition of the Vancouver Daily Province. The news was that Merritt's upcoming election would be its first since 1928. 

“The mayor and three alderman will be elected to two-year terms,” reads the article. “Three other alderman will be elected for a single year. After that all terms will run for two years.”

Merritt - FILE PHOTO

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Cameron Bridge, Nicola Valley Museum manager, said the city defaulted on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt. It was the result of an investment made in the 1920s by a private company to address an aging electrical grid.

“The city was continuously growing and needed another electrical source as a means to get power to the city,” he said. “And it just so happens at the same time there was a man who owned one of the big mills who also wanted a new source of electricity.”

That man was Henry C. Meeker and he owned Nicola Pine Mills. He entered into discussions with the city and reached a deal to invest in a power plant at the mill. Electricity would be produced by burning lumber waste and sold to the city at 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

The plant fired up on April 29, 1928.

“It was a big red letter day,” Bridge said. “There was a big celebration once it got up and running.”

But with the Great Depression only a few years away, it wouldn’t be long before the mill started suffering heavy financial losses.

“There wasn’t as much building, not as many orders coming in for wood,” Bridge said.

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So Meeker came up with a plan to take out $125,000 worth of bonds to save the mill, and have the city guarantee them.

The mayor of the day was not in favour of the idea but after some back-and-forth discussions a plebiscite was planned for January 1931.

Meeker promised locals that if they voted to guarantee the bonds, there would be more local jobs and a stronger electrical grid.

The plebiscite passed 161 to 90 and Meeker invested the money in new equipment and more land.

“He had a few more new orders, but it didn’t go so well,” Bridge said.

It was 1932 when Nicola Pine Mills defaulted on its payments, which put Merritt into receivership.

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Meeker left the area in 1932, according to a newsletter from 1995 by the Forest History Association of British Columbia.

The city would be managed by three commissioners while its local government was being run by the province – Sidney Charles Burton from 1933 to 1941, Frederick S. Gay from 1941 to 1948, and W. W. Watson from 1948 to 1951.

Alan Collett was the person elected mayor in 1951.

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