First Nations communities assert the land is traditional territory, having been continuously inhabited for thousands of years.

The confluence of several main streams with the Fraser attracted large seasonal and permanent indigenous populations.

Built as a toll road by Gustavus Blin Wright,[8] the first 20 to 30 kilometres of tortuous canyon-brink grade remained little changed until the 1970s.

[citation needed] In 1864, the shorter Cariboo Road, which connected Yale to Barkerville via Ashcroft, bypassed Lillooet.

[7] The numbered roadhouse names of the Cariboo district became measured from the bend in Main Street commemorated by a cairn erected in 1939.

[12] The section of Main Street north from the cairn was called "the Golden Mile" allegedly to reflect gold dust scattered on the ground[citation needed] but indisputably as a supply hub fueled by the goldrush traffic.

[14][15] Other gold prospecting in the area included underground hard-rock mining in the Bridge River Country, which began in the 1880s and 1890s, but peaked from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Until the discovery of larger jade deposits near Cassiar, the Lillooet area was the world's largest source of the nephrite form.

Unknown tonnes were exported to China before government assayers discovered the nature of the "black rocks" that the Chinese miners found so interesting.

[citation needed] In the 1950s, local farmer and teacher Ron Purvis adapted the skil-saw concept to create a diamond rotary blade.

The blade could safely cut the immovable jade boulders which line the banks and beds of the Fraser and Bridge rivers, whereas blasting would have shattered the rock.

[17] That month, the first passenger train arrived,[18] triggering a revival for the isolated town, since a railway could ship agricultural produce.

[23] In 1930, PGE built the 8.9-kilometre (5.5 mi) Lillooet Diversion from the head of Seton Lake, through the downtown, and north to the Polley bridge.

In 1931, PGE completed the bridge, built a new two-storey station downtown, and dismantled and reassembled the roundhouse nearby.

The town began as a goldrush centre in the late 1850s, booming during the progression of discoveries on the Fraser and in the Cariboo in the early 1860s.

The title of "the largest town west of Chicago and north of San Francisco" moved in rapid succession from Yale to Lillooet, and then to Barkerville.

[37] Booms occurred during local gold mining activity, and in the 1940s and 50s during the construction of the Bridge River Power Project.

[40] Four internment camps existed in the Lillooet area during World War II, following the removal of Japanese Canadians from the British Columbia Coast in 1942.

Each were "self-support" sites, where family groups who had the financial means could remain together, but the locations were more isolated than the camps in the Kootenays.

[citation needed] The Fountainview Academy, about 24 kilometres (15 mi) south, is an international private school, which offers work-study experience that includes organic farming.

[citation needed] Situated at an intersection of deep gorges in the lee of the Coast Mountains, it has a dry climate with an average of 349.5 mm (13.76 in) of precipitation being recorded annually.

The locality often vies with Lytton and Osoyoos for the title of "Canada's Hot Spot" on a daily basis in summer.