Agassiz (Post Office) adopted 6 October 1936; form of name changed to Agassiz (Post Office & Railway Station) 4 October 1956; form of name changed to Agassiz (community) 15 December 1982.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Ferney Coombe Post Office opened here 1 May 1884; name changed to Agassiz Post Office 1 May 1888

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Lewis Nunn Agassiz (1827-80) was born in Essex, England, and immigrated to PEI after retiring as an officer from the British Army. He moved to Ontario with his wife, Mary Caroline Schram (1829-1921, see Schram Rocks), and children, then left them to chase gold in California and BC. The family reunited at Victoria in 1862 and lived for a time at Hope and then Yale, where Agassiz was constable and postmaster. In 1862 he pre-empted land in the east Fraser Valley, where he and his family took up residence in 1867, calling their home Ferney Coombe. Agassiz left Canada again in 1875 to embark on a solo world tour, dying in Constantinople while visiting his brother. After the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, a community grew up around Ferney Coombe and the name was changed to Agassiz. Root crops, hops, corn, and dairy and beef farming have all been important to this rural farming district. Agassiz Banks was named by regional hydrographer Henry Parizeau in 1926.

Source: Scott, Andrew; "The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names"; Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, 2009.

Named after the family of the first settler at this point: Captain Louis Agassiz of Stour Lodge, Essex. ... He came to the valley during the gold rush of 1858. It was not possible for Mrs. Agassiz to join him in the Cariboo with her children so she stayed at Yale for several years. She, herself, was Miss Caroline Von Schram of United Loyalist stock. Finally the family took up land here, where they have remained ever since. Captain Agassiz had called the place "Ferny Coombe" but it had an Indian name signifying "beautiful valley". When the CPR was completed to the coast, the station and post office were called Agassiz by the Sir Joseph Trutch, the Dominion agent in BC.

Source: Nelson, Denys; Place Names of the Delta of the Fraser River; 1927, unpublished manuscript held in the Provincial Archives

The former dwellers at Agassiz were the Siyita tribe of Cowichan Indians whose village was Skuhamen (SQuha'mEn), according to Franz Boas. They belonged to the Halkomaylen Division of the Salish linguistic stock.

Source: Nelson, Denys; Place Names of the Delta of the Fraser River; 1927, unpublished manuscript held in the Provincial Archives