of Heffley Creek. His land was purchased by the ever-expanding J.T. Edwards in 1882. John McIver John McIver, a former Hudson's Bay Company employee who started one of the first farms in the region at Cherry Creek in 1860, moved to Heffley Creek in 1869. His land, now occupied by the Rayleigh jail and formerly the Department of National Defense ammunition depot, was bought by Sam Armout in 1888. McIver's log house, built in the late 1860s, is still standing today as the oldest home in the City. By the 1880s other ranchers had settled up the valley towards Heffley Lake and on the heights above the North Thompson River. The Sentinel noted half a dozen different families apart from the major landowners, Edwards, Sullivan and Knouff. The paper also mentioned a good deal of prospecting in the region. In the 1890s many other families settled around Heffley Creek. The Bedard family homesteaded near Knouff Lake in 1898. 1890-1910 The greatest change took place when J.T. Edwards sold his entire operation to Michael Sullivan in the same year. Sullivan, who continued to reside at Shuswap, rented the Circle Bar Ranch, as Edwards' place was named, to various people including W.W. Shaw in 1898 and John McCannell in 1905. They lived in the fine wood and brick house built near the river by J.T. Edwards. Henri Louis Devick arrived from Switzerland in 1904 and after he died in 1906 his sons continued to operate the farm for many years. C.E. Lawrence homesteaded at Silent Pool beginning in 1905, and he also worked as foreman on the Circle Bar Ranch. In the meantime, J.T. Edwards, now in his late fifties, tried to make a new start in the gold rush town of Atlin in northern B.C. His luck was poor, however, and he returned to start a smaller farm at Louis Creek in 1900. He died in 1919 at age 74. Also, in 1870, Cyrus Robbins settled about four miles (6 km) south of Heffley. Until recent years, when it has become a residential community, Heffley Creek has been primarily a quiet farming village raising cattle, sheep and mixed vegetables. What conflicts did occur were most often over water rights as one can imagine in a region where irrigation is essential. Local residents quipped that the people of Heffley would quarrel over dividing the rain drops. After J.T. Edwards became the major