Savona was originally located on the north shore of Kamloops Lake, where it was the end of the stagecoach line from Cache Creek on the Cariboo Wagon Road (later improved as the Trans-Canada Highway). Originally passengers continuing on to the goldfields of the Big Bend of the Columbia River had to take the steamboat up the lake to Kamloops and the Shuswap Country. A man named Savona started a ferry across the Thompson River at this location. A road was later built along the south side of Kamloops Lake to Kamloops, British Columbia.