La Porte, British Columbia

La Porte was a boomtown in British Columbia, Canada, during the Big Bend Gold Rush. The site at the foot of the Dalles des Morts, or Death Rapids, was chosen as the location of a ferry and town on April 23, 1866, during the first voyage of the steamboat Forty-Nine up the Columbia River.^[1] The name reflected its role as the gateway to the mines.^[2]

By 1871, engineer Walter Moberly returned from a survey trip to report that a single resident remained at La Porte,^[3] by 1885 all of the houses were in ruins.^[4]