Homecoming week schedule of events
Beard growing contest
(click here for details)
July 27 - August 1
Homecoming Week
(click here for details)
Volunteers Needed to help with Homecoming week festivities.
Drop off your contact information, including: your name, phone number and
e-mail address to City Hall.
The City of Merritt invites you to celebrate its 100th anniversary. A rich history of logging, mining, ranching, highways and festivals. Share your stories and pictures, participate in contests and take part in the Home Coming Week festivities. It's all part of celebrating our past and looking forward to the future of The City of Merritt.
Merritt, BC
"Three ranches at the confluence of the Nicola and Coldwater Rivers, owned by William Voght, Jesus Garcia and the John Charters estate, became the focus of farming community known as "The Forks" in the 1880s. With the completion of the C.P.R. through British Columbia in 1885, interest increased in the coal deposits south of The Forks.
Part of the ranches owned by Voght, Garcia and Charters was surveyed in 1893 for the townsite of Forksdale, but the name was changed to Merritt in 1906 to honor William Hamilton Merritt, a mining engineer and railway promoter. By 1907, the coal mines were in operation. With the completion of the railway from Spences Bridge, government and other offices started mo
ving from Nicola to establish Merritt as the major settlement in the valley."
"The move towards incorporation began in 1910 and culminated when, on April 1, 1911, Merritt was granted its city charter."
Nicola Valley Museum Archives Association.
Merritt & The Nicola Valley An Illustrated History Merritt, BC 1998.