 Although prospectors , surveyors , and trappers had travelled the region in the 1800s , the first large scale activity in the river valley by Europeans was logging . J.P. McGoldrick , an experienced lumberman from Spokane , established the Adams River Lumber Company in 1909 . He licensed large tracts of timber along both the Upper and Lower rivers , as well as the surrounding plateau . McGoldrick 's company is described as the first major industrial operation in the British Columbia Interior . 
