Several other families also arrived in the early 1890's, though Creston was still a long ways from being an established town. The Huscroft family, which came in covered wagon from Utah in 1891, originally settled near the Kootenay River. The flood of 1894 forced them to move to higher ground, into the area east of Creston that today is known as Huscroft.
The settler era saw a renewal of interest in mining in the Creston area. The most prominent mine in the area was the Alice mine, located on Goat Mountain and staked in 1890. Several other mines were also discovered before the turn of the century. However, development of these claims could not occur until railways were built to make shipment of ore and supplies possible, and, even then, the mines of the Creston Valley would be short-lived. The Alice mine, however, was lucrative enough that a concentrator was built near the CPR tracks at what became known as Alice Siding, just north of Creston itself. The ore was shipped from the mine to the concentrator on an aerial tramway.
In 1898, the Canadian Pacific Railway built an extension, the Crows Nest Pass Railway, through the Creston Valley. Within two years, the great Northern had also opened a line through the valley, from Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, to Kuskanook, on the east shore of Kootenay Lake. These railways were built to access the rich mining districts near Nelson and Kaslo. Although Creston experienced a bit of a boom due to railway construction, for a few more years at least, it was considered only a minor siding along the way.
