[4] The property lay on the Cariboo Road about 3 kilometres (2 mi) due west of the river.

[5] In partnership with E.William Brink, John Christopher Barnes established a ranch in 1868 on the east shore of the river.

[7] Jerome Harper built a gristmill in 1877 on the west shore at the mouth of the Bonaparte River.

In the early 1880s, the Brink son-in-law Oliver Evans managed the family property.

Evans and John Barnes built the small Thompson River Hotel at the ferry landing.

[6] In 1884, Barnes moved the hotel to opposite the train station[8] and surveyed the townsite on his ranch.

[13] That year, Ike Decker, acting deputy in the absence of the constable, was killed just downstream in a gunfight with two outlaws passing in a boat.

[22] In summer 1884, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) built a log bunkhouse and station at the new townsite.

[6] The structure was the standard-design (Bohi's Type 5) single-storey station building with gable roof and dormers (identical to Keefers).

[23] In early December, the eastward advance of the CP rail head from Port Moody passed through the townsite.

Cloud, the access point to the Red River Trails on the Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad),[25] the name did not last.

[29] In February 1912, the 244-metre (800 ft) Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) tunnel at Black Canyon was virtually completed.

[30] The Ashcroft flag stop, identified only by a pole in the ground, serves Via Rail's The Canadian.

[6] In 1887, the Cargile Hotel was dismantled at Hat Creek, reassembled at Ashcroft, blown down by the wind, restored, destroyed by fire, and rebuilt.

The village had eight Chinese businesses, three churches, a bank, a county court, hydroelectricity, and a water supply system.

[40] By 1905, three hotels, nine stores, and government buildings at Ashcroft served the transportation hub, ranches, and mines.

[43] In 1914, when BCX lost the mail contract, stage services ceased, but two steamboats remained in operation.

[44] The completion of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTP) in 1914, which connected Prince George and the coast, further reduced the BCX traffic at Ashcroft, leading to a sharp decline in business and the local population.

[51] Chinese gardeners dominated the tomato industry in Ashcroft to the point that there were no Euro-Canadian growers in the area in 1926.

[56] The predecessor to BC Hydro acquired the Ashcroft electricity supply system in 1953.

[57] The next year, the completion of the transmission line from Lillooet connected Ashcroft to the electricity grid.

[67] Prior to the opening of the Cache Creek Airport in 1984, various landing strips had existed in the Ashcroft area for decades.

In 1922, the four-room Lady Byng School (grades 1–12) was built at the south end of town.

He was designated a dangerous offender and received an indeterminate prison sentence in 1986,[75] but obtained work release in 1998[76] and full parole in 2003.

[68] A female teacher, who sexually exploited two students during 1987–1989, received a one-year prison sentence.

[83] In 2000, the Thompson Valley Savings Credit Union acquired the Bank of Montreal branch operations in Ashcroft and Merritt.

[107] That year, ongoing First Nations opposition compelled the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) to abandon plans to succeed the Cache Creek landfill by creating a new facility on the Ashcroft Ranch site, which was acquired in 2000.

[110] When the former Ashcroft Elementary School was vacated in 2015, the HUB repurposed the building as a community centre.

[127] Ashcroft is frequently one of the hottest places in BC in the summer and has the second highest temperature ever recorded in Canada.

Parts of Ashcroft along the Thompson River gorge are sufficiently arid to be classified as a cold desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWk); this microclimate forms the only true desert in Canada.