I recently noticed that Hugh was boarding with a James Fox. On the 1891 census it says that James operated a Hotel for the railroad. I contacted Elisabeth Duckworth of the Kamloops Museum & Archives, and this is what she found.
"I have one reference to a James (or John) Fox. It is a newspaper ad in 1888 and again in 1890 for the CPR Hotel, "a first rate Temperance House." No address is given except that it is "conveniently located close to the station", in this case at the corner of Third Avenue and Lansdowne St. The CPR reached Kamloops in 1885. The town was pretty small then, only a few hundred people with a handful of streets, so pretty well everywhere was close to the station. The fact that it was a temperance house is interesting. I wonder whose idea that was? Fox's or the CPR's? The hotel was later known as Marpole House. I'll send a photo under separate email that shows the hotel/house in the centre background. The house is long gone, but the property still belongs to and is used by the CPR in what is now the busy downtown."
The CPR archives sent an email in response to my query,
"The building does not look big enough to house 30+ people. It must be that the census taker was given the register in order to list the lodgers and that several of them were on duty that day. As to the temperance policy, that would have been CPR's idea to comply with their policies."
If you have anything to add, I would like to find out more about this, please contact me.
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