The First Nations of the South Okanagan settled near the river, creeks and valley lakes. The first encroachment from the outside world came circa 1811, when fur traders came to the area with the establishment of Fort Okanagan and first explored the area for trade. In the 1880s, free gold-bearing quartz was found at Camp McKinney which became a busy gold mine, attracting miners, con men, and outlaws. Fairview miners found gold and fueled the growth of a boomtown but it lasted just a few years and no remnants of the town survive today, other than a heritage marker.
Established in 1918, Oliver was a settlement for unemployed veterans of the First World War. A gravity-fed canal was constructed to provide irrigation to the semi-arid area.
On January 30, 1919, the South Okanagan Lands Project began work on the Intake Dam at the base of McIntyre Bluff. Over the next eight years the 23 concrete-lined miles of the main canal were dug southward to the boundary. Eighteen and a half feet across the top, five feet deep and delivering 230 cubic feet per second, SOLP designed it to enable farmers to put nearly a foot of water per month on every acre of bottom land in the southern Valley. To get the canal from the east side of the Valley to the benches on the west, the “big siphon”—now concrete, but originally a -long wood-stave pipe of six and a half-foot-diameter—was constructed. It runs directly beneath the centre of Oliver. The offices of the land project and the building that housed the BC Police built circa 1924 stand today in Oliver as preserved heritage sites.
A post office was established in 1921 and the BC government administered the area until 1945 when a village was incorporated and a council elected. In 1991, the community's municipal incorporation was upgraded to town, its current status.
In 1923 the Kettle Valley Railway constructed Oliver station and rails to transport fruit north to Penticton.
Administration of water
SOLP South Okanagan Lands Project – established by the Province of BC 1921 and run by provincial government employees for over forty years. In the spring of 1964 the Oliver/Osoyoos Fruit Growers' Association was informed that the province was getting out of the irrigation business.
SOLID South Okanagan Lands and Irrigation District – On June 25, 1964 the Fruit Growers' Association volunteered itself to be the cornerstone of the locally constituted South Okanagan Lands Irrigation District which operated the system until 1989.
Oliver Water Town of Oliver – The water district was divided into two parts to be run by municipal governments. The Towns of Oliver and Osoyoos now deliver nineteen billion imperial gallons—nearly one hundred billion litres—to the Valley’s parched soils annually. 1990 saw the election of Water Councillors in both communities—a first in BC.
Cody Kearsley, actor, known for his role as Moose Mason in the popular CW series Riverdale, graduate of SOSS
Climate
Oliver has a semi-arid climate with hot, dry summers and cool winters. Annual snowfall is light, averaging just 18 inches. Oliver is amongst the warmest communities in Canada with an average daily mean of 50.5°F.
