Garage burned down the building and an adjacent restaurant. In 1967, a radio repeater antenna was relocated to Windermere The Canal Flats Airstrip, which existed from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, was decommissioned when the paved more modern Fairmont Hot Springs Airport opened. In 1985, a nearby wildfire forced an evacuation of about 1,400 residents. Railway The Kootenay Central Railway (KCR) was a CP subsidiary. In 1913, Burns and Jordan, the prime contractor for the railway construction, employed a large force in the vicinity. In November 1914, the last spike was driven near the north end of Columbia Lake. In January 1915, the inaugural passenger train arrived on the commencement of a through service. In 2021, a southbound freight train struck the rear trailer of a fully loaded logging truck at the Thunderhill Road railway crossing. Although damages were extensive, no injuries were sustained. Forestry In 1888, a steam sawmill was installed for the duration of the canal construction. In 1910, Canal Flats camps, under the oversight of T.G. Procter, took out of logs for transportation to the Crow's Nest Pass Lumber Co mill. In 1928, CP erected a warehouse at Canal Flats. Construction began on a logging railway up Findlay Creek and a mammoth mill northeast of the station. The next year, the CP planing mill followed the relocation of the CP sawmill from Bull River. The logging railway advanced farther up Findlay Creek, and the Crow's Nest Lumber Co also laid tracks toward Canal Flats along the main road from the south. During the early 1930s, CP operated several small tie mills in the area. A spur led to the several yard tracks at the sawmill, which was owned by Crestbrook Forest Industries in the 1970s and Canadian Forest Products on closing in 2015 with the loss of 75 jobs. Later community In 2004, the settlement incorporated as a village municipality. That year, the Nature Conservancy of Canada became a conservation partner in the Thunder Hill Ranch. From the mid-2010s, the village was transitioning from a forestry-dependent economy. To promote tech and trades, the Columbia Lake Technology Center opened in 2018 within the skeleton of the old mill. Two key tenants were PodTech, which manufactured transportable data centres, and Bid Group, which manufactured products such as steel conveyors for forestry companies. The existence of fibre optic infrastructure on site and in town was strategic. In 2016, Mountain