The town was named for Edward Henry Stanley, brother of Frederick Arthur Stanley for whom Vancouver's Stanley Park was named. The story of the town is more the story of one of its residents, a Samuel Montgomery. Born in Ireland in 1814, he was a sailor for some fifteen years before yielding to the urge to prospect for gold. Sam heard about the fortunes being made in the Cariboo and arrived in the area around 1854 settling on the banks of Lightening Creek. It is said he never went "outside" for the next forty-two years. Over the years, the Stanley area yielded more than $10 million but Sam saw practically none of it. What he did see was only enough to keep him from starving. He was everybody's favorite. Nobody worked harder than Sam and had less to show for it. At 82 years of age, he made what he said would be his last effort. He acquired a claim and on it sank a seventy-eight foot shaft. At the bottom, he dug horizontally as far as he could, doing all the work himself. It was all for naught. Sam was a broken old man. Around 1900, a group of prospectors formed a company to explore an old claim that had been declared worthless. Out of sympathy for old Sam, the partners decided to include him in the partnership. As a sign of respect, the claim was referred to as the Montgomery. In 1902, the Montgomery passed into a piece of ground that yielded enormous wealth to all the partners. But the toil of all the previous years had taken its toll on Sam. He died shortly thereafter and was buried on the hillside with many of his old friend. He was 88.