You are standing on the railbed of the former New Westminster Southern Railway. The railway started at the US border and terminated at Brownsville, opposite to New Westminster. From this point, the line headed NE to the intersection of 192 Street and Highway 1, and then curved to the NW to where the CN tracks are now, and SW towards the intersection of the Fraser Highway and the Pacific Highway (176th Street) along Harvie Road.
Port Kells was originally founded along the Fraser River by two men both named Henry Kells. The brothers–in–law formed a partnership and bought one square mile of land along the river front in what is today the Port Kells District of Surrey and West Langley. They laid out a town site dividing the property into city sized lots. The first post office and store was built, by the elder Henry Kells, near the present wharf.
The town site along the Fraser River did not flourish and when the New Westminster and Southern Railway was being built the partners gave some 16 acres to the NWSR to ensure a station in Port Kells. The station was located just north of the junction of Broadway (now Harvey Road and 190th Street at 88th Avenue). A small commercial core developed that included a sawmill, a store, a community hall, and a church all of which grew up south of the station at Holt/Davis Road (now 88th Ave. and Harvey Road). Port Kells never grew into the thriving town site the Kells brothers envisioned. It had a strong agricultural base and many early settlers farmed in the area. The spur line to the Fraser River brought logs to be dumped and boomed for movement down the river to the mills in New Westminster. In addition a number of small milling operations operated along the Fraser within the Port Kells town site.
When Henry Kells moved his town site from the Fraser River to the railway, he kept the former name Port Kells.