Forgotten Alberta

Sights and Stories of the Southeast

Walter spelled backwards

Posted on | August 9, 2010 | 1 Comment


Advertisement from the Lethbridge Herald on June 25, 1914

The C.P.R’s Suffield subdivision – Part Two of Two
While rumours continued to surface about possible links to Lethbridge, the final destination of the Suffield subdivision remained a mystery well into 1913.
On April 24, any hopes of a link up with Kipp were dashed when the Lethbridge Herald confirmed that the Suffield line would be veering northwest from the new community of Retlaw towards an eventual link with Blackie on the Aldersyde subdivision. Retlaw, the community formerly known as Barney, was renamed to honour Walter R. Baker, the Secretary of the Canadian Pacific Railway: “Retlaw” is “Walter” spelled backwards.
The C.P.R. assured the farmers of the Aby and Sundial districts, and the vested interests in Lethbridge, that the Kipp-Suffield line would be built, once the Suffield-Blackie line was complete. They fulfilled their promise up to a point ten years later, that point being Turin, the last stop on 27 miles of rail running northeast from Coalhurst. However, the proposed link-up never progressed any further, stopping a good 20 miles short of Retlaw in 1925.
Crews continued to work through the spring and summer, with the first trains running from Suffield to the Bow River at Terrace siding (now Cecil) in September of 1913. Two months later construction on a bridge across the Bow just north of the Southern Alberta Land Company’s (SALC) proposed headquarters at Ronalane (so-named for Major-General Sir Ronald B. Lane, chairman of the SALC) was completed, and the first engines steamed into Retlaw in November 1913.
With Retlaw growing by leaps and bounds, and on the verge of incorporation by early 1914, the C.P.R. began laying track on another stretch north and east of the community, adjacent to the main canal of the Southern Alberta Land Company.
By the late spring, crews had constructed 27 more miles of track, with four more townsites surveyed along the way.
For the SALC and the C.P.R., maintaining shareholder buoyancy was all a part of keeping schemes like these afloat. One method these companies used to keep investors on-side was to appeal their immortality. Like Retlaw and Ronalane, several of the townsites along the Suffield line derived their names from SALC and C.P.R. shareholders and officials:
  • Illingworth siding, the next stop east of Ronalane was named for W. Illingworth, a shareholder in the SALC, and director of the C.P.R.
  • Vauxhall, six miles west of Retlaw, was named for a suburb of London, England in which one of the company shareholders resided.
  • Agatha, the stop between Illingworth and Suffield, was named Lady Hindlip, a major shareholder in the C.P.R.
  • Cecil, where the Suffield subdivision crossed the Bow, was originally named Terrace, but was renamed to honour Mrs. J.M. Cameron, the wife of the General Superintendent of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
  • Armelgra, located four miles west of the river crossing along the Bow, was an amalgamation of the words “Arthur Melville Grace”, who was an engineer with the C.P.R.
With five new sidings to name along the Suffield line, and with the promise of more to come, officials concocted one of their most creative naming conventions yet: The name of each subsequent townsite west of the village started with a corresponding letter from the word “Retlaw”. Beginning with Retlaw, the townsites were named as follows:
  • Enchant – Originally the Lost Lake district. Place Names of Alberta ascribes the name to a possible feeling that settlers may have been “enchanted” with their new life.
  • Travers – Originally the Sweet Valley district, the History of Lomond and district speculates the name may have come from a railway surveyor who was present in 1914.
  • Lomond – Initially the Brunetta district, it is believed Lomond is derived from one of two sources – Loch Lomond or the name of an early settler, Lomond Dugal McCarthy.
While the Cummins maps of 1914 indicates that construction was to continue onward to Armada and a ‘W’ siding named Waldeck, work stopped at Lomond in the summer of 1914, and did not resume again until 1924 when the line was extended northwest to Arrowwood. One can speculate that the C.P.R. like the SALC was not immune to the cash crunch that accompanied the outbreak of hostilities in June 1914, and this may have put the breaks on any construction beyond Lomond until the Great War had concluded.
Around the same time, the C.P.R. began advertising the sale of lots in the new towns of Enchant, Travers & Lomond, and soon prospering communities grew up on all three townsites. Armada was also surveyed in 1913, and a small commercial centre developed here, persevering until the arrival of rail over a decade later.
The link to the Aldersyde Subdivision was finally completed in 1930, when the Suffield-Lomond line as it became to be known was extended from Arrowwood to Eltham, northwest of Vulcan.
The Suffield-Lomond line remained in service for over eight decades until it was abandoned in its entirety between 1996 & 2002.
Category: Places, Stories, The Map, Vulcan County History
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Comments

One Response to “Walter spelled backwards”

  1. Will
    February 28th, 2011 @ 1:42 pm

    Great Stuff! Merrily Aubrey in “Concise Place Names of Alberta” has the final station on the line after Armada listed as Walter, but it appears she is in error as your referenced map clearly states Waldeck.

    I had to change my own post on the subject! Nothing new to you here, but you might be interested in the pics:
    http://ocanadianhistory.blogspot.com/2011/02/retlaw-alberta-and-naming-of-prairie.html

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    Drawing on over 100 years of family history in the southeast, this is my attempt to shine the spotlight on southeastern Alberta's forgotten history.

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