Properties were sold in both of the main town sites and many others nearby, such as Birmingham, Fort Salmon, Nechako Heights and Willow City. By 1913, South and Central Fort George each had a population of 1500 and were booming as thousands of rail construction workers came to town for supplies and entertainment. Both communities believed that the Grand Trunk Pacific station and town site would be built in their town, and both were disappointed when the railway purchased the 1,366 acres (5.53 km) of land in between them from the Lhiedli T'enneh instead, even though Charles Vance Millar, then the owner of the BC Express Company, was well into negotiations to purchase that property himself. The railway compensated Millar by giving him 200 acres (0.81 km) of the property and, by 1914, when the railway was completed, there were four major communities in Fort George: South, Central, Millar Addition and the railway's town site, Prince George, where the station was built. And, although George Hammond fought a series of bitter legal battles for a station for Central and for the right to incorporate, the railway won in the end and the City of Prince George was incorporated on 6 March 1915. The actual history of where the city's name is derived from is under dispute, but it is likely that the most obvious name of Fort George wasn't chosen because the Grand Trunk Pacific wanted to take credence away from the two rival town sites. Prince George could simply have been named after the ruling King George V or for Prince George, Duke of Kent the fourth son of King George V.
War years
With the onset of the Great War in 1914, the local economy was devastated as many local men enlisted and the construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway was halted, creating a massive drop in population, a problem that was exacerbated by the ensuing Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Prince George persevered through the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s and did
