ATHABASCA - A fire that turned a historical building to ash in the Amber Valley area just before the new year is considered suspicious and is still under investigation.
Obadiah Place, about 25 km east of Athabasca, on Amber Valley Road, marked the original homestead of Willis Reese Bowen, who settled the land with his wife and children in 1913, including son Obadiah, who replaced the original log cabin on the site in 1938 with the one-and-a-half story house that burned to the ground just before the new year. The homestead became the centre of the community for many of the Black settlers from the United States who arrived in the area from 1911 forward.
Obadiah Bowen lived in the home until 1996, and the house was designated as a provincial historic resource in 1999.
The exact time of the fire is unknown at this time, said Boyle RCMP Sgt. Colin Folk, but a witness described seeing smoke at about 5:30 a.m. Dec. 29, although nothing was reported, and RCMP did not arrive at the scene until Dec. 30.
“No one was called there at the time it was burning, it was already out and had been out for a couple of days by the time anybody called anybody, so it must have caught fire in the early evening and burned overnight,” said Folk.
A half mile away from the homestead, piles of deadfall were also being burned at the time, so residents in the area would have been accustomed to seeing smoke in the air.
“It’s suspicious in the fact that according to the person that was restoring the place, there was nothing in the place that could have potentially started the fire,” said Folk, adding the house was serviced with electricity, but there was nothing that would have been plugged in.
“The file is still open, so we’re going to be investigating this to determine the cause of the fire.”
If you have any information on this incident, you are encouraged to contact Boyle RCMP at 780-689-3622. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3Tips.com or by using the "P3 Tips" app available through the Apple App or Google Play Store.
