Glenbow Archives NA-1254-5
Rollingdown the track
ONE OF THE FIRST MAJOR “CROPS”
exported from southern Alberta to U.S.
markets was coal. This train, owned by
the Alberta Railway and Coal Company
(although the line appears to have had sev-
eral different names), is making the run in
1912 between Lethbridge, AB, and Great
Falls, MT, passing through the Coutts/
Sweetgrass border crossing carrying both
coal and passengers.
The rail line was part of the plan by Sir
Alexander Galt, one of Canada’s Fathers
of Confederation, to settle the Canadian
West. The first part of the project was a
narrow-gauge (three foot) rail line called
the North Western Coal and Navigation
Company. It was built between 1884 and
1885 between coal mines in Lethbridge
and the main Canadian Pacific Railway
line at Dunmore, just east of Medicine
Hat. Coal used to be shipped by barge
down the Oldman River, but once the
rail line was built, CP agreed to buy at
least 20,000 tons of coal per year for $5
per ton.
To further develop the unsettled
territory, Galt incorporated the Alberta
Railway & Coal Company and, in 1889,
with money from private investors, built
a 105-kilometre narrow-gauge line from
Lethbridge to Coutts. It was later upgrad-
ed to standard gauge.
To complete the project, the Galt fam-
ily received a Montana charter to build
another narrow-gauge line between Great
Falls, MT, and the Canadian border, link-
ing up the Lethbridge-to-Coutts line. It
took 108 days to build the stretch of track
known as the Great Falls & Canada Rail-
way line, which opened in the fall of 1890.
The U.S. side of the rail line was upgraded
to standard gauge in 1901 and sold to the
Montana Great Northern Railway.
While these rail lines for coal were
being developed in the late 1800s, the Galt
family also saw the potential to develop
the agriculture industry. The Government
of Canada was keen on immigration, so
between 1886 and 1901 the Alberta Rail-
way and Coal Company (later to be called
the Alberta Railway and Irrigation Com-
pany) was granted access to a solid block
of 500,000 acres adjacent to the St. Mary
River. The company contacted Charles
Ora Card, an official with the Mormon
Church in Utah, and members of the
church began moving to southern Alberta.
They brought with them the know-how to
begin development of southern Alberta’s
irrigated crop production industry.
AGAINST
THE GRAIN
Winter
2016
Grains
West
50
