Monitor started its life as a settlement on the land of Mr. C.W. Beesley. According to “A treasure of memories”, a handful of enterprising settlers had exercised “squatters rights” on Mr. Beesley’s land, founding a community known as “Empress”. A tenacious threesome opened a grocery store, butcher shop, and real estate agency on Beesley’s quarter […]
#FABTrip21: Bulwark’s bonanza was short-lived
The bona fide ghostly burg of Bulwark did not always seem destined for desertion. This area was originally known as Lindsville, named for Thomas L. Lind, the first postmaster in these parts. The community of Bulwark came into being around 1915 after a townsite was surveyed here along a new Canadian Pacific spur line, running […]
Blaze a trail to Antelope Hill Provincial Park
Since the establishment of Antelope Hill Provincial Park was first announced way back in 2014, I have looked forward to the moment when I would be able to head out to Special Areas to see what I could see. Following an eight year wait, Antelope Hill was finally opened to the public this Spring. So […]
There’s something doing at Dowling
It was a happy coincidence when I received a message recently from a gentleman named Bill McGillivray. Mr. McGillivray informed me he was once the Alberta Wheat Pool elevator agent at Dowling, a former railway siding and settlement about 10 miles north of the town of Hanna. “I lived in the dwelling attached to elevator […]
Forgotten Alberta: Fading Legacies is now available on ebook
The story of southeastern Alberta is one of boosters, builders, skeptics, and schemers. In Forgotten Alberta: Fading Legacies, author, Jonathan Koch explores the stories of some of the settlers, speculators, and scalawags who found their way to the Last Best West, and whose names and legacies are slowly fading from memory. This is the third […]