concern regarding over-fishing of the salmon stocks, actually served to increase the popularity of the area. E.P. Painter, for instance, moved to Campbell River the following year and opened his Painter's Lodge in 1929. Painter's Lodge attracted clientele from Hollywood and regular patrons included Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Commercial fishing was a large industry for many years. The town's magistrate Roderick Haig-Brown purchased a fishing cabin on Campbell River and wrote a number of books on fly fishing that are influential and well-loved around the world for both sport fishermen and conservationists.
Industrial logging took off in the 1920s with Merrill Ring and Company, Bloedel, Stewart and Welch and Comox Logging. A large forest fire started near Buttle Lake and burned much of the valley in 1938. Rock Bay, Menzies Bay, and Englewood all were big logging camps.
Campbell River prospered after 1912 and it became a supply point for northern Vancouver Island, Quadra Island and Cortes Island. The E and N Railway was surveyed to Campbell River, yet it only reached Courtenay, forty miles south; in its original conception it would have been the last leg of the transcontinental railway, which had been proposed to run downBute Inlet after cross the British Columbia Interior, connecting to Vancouver Island just north of Campbell River at Seymour Narrows. After the Second World War, Campbell River became a boom town and industrial centre with the building of the Elk River pulp mill, and nearby mills in Tahsis and Gold River. Logging and mining in the area prospered. There is a lead zinc mine nearby, and coal mines, while a large copper mine operated to the north
