Hutton nestles in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains about four miles (6.4 km) north-northeast of the Grand Canyon of the Fraser, in central British Columbia.
[7] In 1913, William (Bill) A. Willits (see #Community) (Willots alternate spelling), who owned a number of timber limits on the upper Fraser,[8] established a sawmill.
[12] Since the millpond,[13] created by damming Wolf Creek, was 2.3 miles (3.7 km) from the closest point on the Fraser, using the river to float logs to the mill was not an option.
Facing a similar predicament, Giscome Spruce Mills (GSM) would also choose this hauling mode that equally proved uneconomic for the low timber volumes per acre.
In April 1919, to guard against sabotage, the mill restricted employee access to the property outside normal working hours, and engaged armed security that had the powers of special constables.
[16] In October, guided by mill manager Mark DeCew (DeCue alternate spelling), a party accompanying the Duke of Devonshire, governor-general 1916–21, viewed the facility.
However, year round work existed in sawmill towns such as Giscome, Aleza Lake, Hutton, Penny and Longworth.
[21] The company soon discovered its original strategy of selling lumber directly to Prairie farmers (UGG shareholders) was flawed.
Ordering carloads in advance was inconvenient for farmers, and prairie lumber dealers refused to handle the product, because it circumvented their own distribution channels.
UGG also realized the mill was poorly located, servicing stands of extremely knotted cedar and hemlock,[22] and the lumber operations were incurring a $78,352 loss annually by 1922.
A legal action followed when suspicions arose as to whether GSM was keeping an accurate count of the UGG logs it was milling.
[25] When GSM fenced off a road passing through one of its logging lots to block UGG access, the courts quashed the action, because it was a public thoroughfare.
[26] Using a donkey engine and cables at a facility two miles (3.2 km) east of Giscome station, the UGG could load two trainloads daily for transportation via the CNR line.
That winter, Jack Turnbull (probably 1878–1964)[36] ran an 80-man camp one mile (1.6 km) to the west for Sinclair Spruce Mills.
The car once carried logs stacked in a triangular formation upon a track formed from poles laid end-to-end.
[84] Following a movie showing by Levi Graham of Prince George in 1922, the Hutton orchestra supplied the music for a dance.
[86] While the men remained to fight the severe 1927 forest fire, a flagged freight train temporarily evacuated the women and children from Longworth, and the largely vacated Hutton accommodated many of the evacuees.
[85] Mrs. Winifred Mary Grogan (1896–1991)[90][91] opened a general store,[37][85] and became postmaster 1928–29, a role commonly performed by a storeowner in such towns.
[100] In 1931, when their speeder struck and killed a moose, a number of residents travelling to a dance at Longworth suffered injuries.
[107] In 1939, William (Bill) Chance (1921–62), later at Upper Fraser,[108] and his brother Jim, came too close when photographing a bull moose.
Alighting the train at Hutton, he lingered for hours in the waiting room prior to commencing his 3.2-mile (5.1 km) return walk.
When ejected before dawn for obnoxious behavior, he smashed a station window with a rock, garnering a $5 fine plus $18.91 for damages.
[114][54] By 1921, the railway was stringing telephone wires east of Prince George as far as Hutton, connecting mills and farms along the route with the outside world.
In the early 1950s, the CBC installed a 25-watt relay transmitter at Hutton to provide better reception for radio listeners in the area.