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 […]
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 […]
Motoring on the boulevard of Sunnynook
"Last night I had a most beautiful dream. I was motoring on the boulevard of Sunnynook, which was beautified by a row of trees, while on each side, as far as the eye could seem were field of golden grain which were fast being harvested…Looking further ahead I could see a splendid town, with its […]
This is Homestead Coulee
A legacy of the boom years in Alberta is the network of paved highways running through some of the most sparsely populated areas of the province. One of these roads is Secondary Highway 570, which passes by Homestead Coulee, a locality within Special Area #2. A plaque from Alberta’s 75th celebration provides the following history: […]
A glorious summer sojourn in the Special Areas
Founded about 1925, the now extinct settlement of Naco, Alberta derived its name from a town and former military post on the Arizona – Mexico border. According to the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, the word “Naco” means “nopal cactus” in the extinct Ópata language of Sonora in Mexico. Wikipedia also states that “nopal” […]