Wells Museum

Community Services & Organizations-Education-Organizations

The town of Wells has an interesting and intriguing history as a hard rock mining town. The placer mines and small operators of the gold rush commonly associated with Barkerville soon morphed into big business undertaken by large companies. The Wells gold rush began when new prospectors came calling with new mining techniques. One was Fred Wells, and it was his name that would grace the town that would eventually be built around the second gold rush.

The Wells Museum tells much of this story as well as the decades that followed, including the end of mining in Wells and what the subsequent decades have brought to the area. Fittingly, the Wells Museum is currently housed in one of the few remaining original mining company buildings. Guests to the Wells Museum are invited to visit the gift shop before leaving and take home a souvenir.

Meet the Wells Historical Society Members

Meet the Wells Historical Society Members

The Wells Museum is owned and operated by the Wells Historical Society. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to collecting, storing and displaying artifacts, photos and stories of the history of Wells. The society has been around informally since the 1950s, but was incorporated as an official society in 1972. It later established the Wells Museum as a means of connecting community members as well as visitors to the stories of the town's early days.

The Wells Historical Society maintains an extensive archive of information, artifacts, photographs and newspaper clippings related to Wells' past. Every item has been catalogued so that it can be made accessible to anyone interested in delving into the area's history and the stories of its residents. The society and the museum are run almost entirely on the help of dedicated volunteers who live in Wells and do what they do because they love history and believe in preserving the past for the people of the present.

Mandy Kilsby is a member of the Wells Historical Society and has seen first hand how tireless those volunteers have been over the years. She is especially proud of the meticulous work that they have done in organizing and cataloguing the archives. Mandy and the rest of the volunteers are passionate about their small town. After all, there are so many things to appreciate about it. Says Mandy, "I can bike, hike, swim, ski all within a five minute walk of my back door... Everyone who lives here has a story to tell. They have amazing skills and life experience."

4120 Pooley St
Wells, BC V0K 2R0

Hours

Open seasonally during the summer months.
Please contact for hours.