Gustavus Blinn Wright was a surveyor and merchandiser in
the Cariboo.
He arrived in
British Columbia in
1858 where he began packing supplies
on the
Harrison-
Lillooet
trail. Wright became a prominent
figure in the field and by
1862, he was one of three contractors awarded a contract to build the Cariboo
Road.
He became embroiled in controversy when he chose to divert from the original route
for the road, opting instead to have it
pass nearer to a roadhouse he had purchased in
Deep Creek.
The owners of the roadhouses in
Williams Lake accused him of deviating the road's path for
his own benefit, but colonial officials ultimately sided with
Wright. After the completion of the project,
officials awarded him further road construction, as well as rail surveying, contracts,
despite ongoing complaints that the government was
biased in Wright's favour.
Wright further contributed to the development of the
Kootenay Region by opening
the first general stores in Revelstoke and Ainsworth, as well as some of the first
major mines in the
area.
Little is known about Wright's early life, apart from his time spent as a placer-miner
in
California during the
1850s.
In the
1870s, Wright occasionally wintered in
Portland, Oregon,
where he met his wife Julia Anna Sutton, with whom he had three
children.