tlt$mw CARDSTON SECTION VOL. 4 SECTION THREE LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1918. No. 83 kept down by the coyotes and the mated sphere that do not believe in i multiplicity of hawks and owls. The evolution, but surely we evolve from ' latter lived in the deep prairie grass one thing to another with surprising THE TOWN OF CARDSTON: in hundreds. The land was cleared alertness, and little did the denizen FOUNDING OF THE MORMON put and was doing nothing but grow­ of this district of 30 years ago imagine ing grass and waiting for develop­ that in the year 1918 he would be ment. Most of the living creatures playing golf on the Blood Reserve. were gone. Even the vegetation had on the confines of Cardston, and INTERESTING RETROSPECT changed in later years, for some might be using the same cute little CHDRCH IN ALBERTA flowers that were not numerous un­ cuss words towards his little golf ball der "old-time" conditions seem to be that he had been in the habit of ad­ dressing to his cayuse, when it The story of the rise of Cardston is sites and lots marked out to accom­ better enabled to stand the ravages dumped him on his head on the Seldom does the average person, arrived and on June 3, 1887, the main of " civilization," and others not so but a scrap in the history of the uni­ modate many of the most congested prairie, or when it accidentally put its gliding along by rail or motor car body of settlers, about eight families, areas of overcrowded Europe, but the well adapted, and many of them very foot in a hole and rolled over on him. from Lethbridge to Cardston, think encamped on Lees creek, where Card­ verse, yet it forms a very important I beautiful, have disappeared all to- ston now stands. scrap in the lives of those who have people were over there and not here It's the same prairie, though put to of the struggles and not a few hard­ | gether. The old-timer misses the different uses, and its size is almost The period of settlement, 1887 to taken part and may mean a vast deal and "real estate," except in the places I wealth of beauty in the spring flow- ships made and endured by those who that were really meant to grow, went unlimited. Golf in the days when 1897, covers a time of slow but steady more to generations that are coming. I ers that he used to enjoy. The Cardston was born had not yet left pioneer in any new country. Those progress. Cardston grew from a tent­ After perusing a recently written back to its original prairie. We know i march of man in a new country has a who have ed village to a thriving farm centre, now far better what the country is Scotland, and if it had would have Passed through such ex­ be-ok which speculates upon the prob­ ' devastating influence until later he periences realize what it has cost to from which other settlements began fitted for and we are aware of the been impossible to play on the pres­ able age of the world and gives min­ supplants an artificial beauty in make these extensive farms and com­ to start. fact that if we develop the country place of the original that nature her­ ent course as the bunch grass was ute calculations by many very scien­ fortable homes now taken as a matter To the west, some eight miles, the the towns will grow of themselves. self manufactured and took care of. too heavy and vegetation too rank till of course. family of Thos. R. Leavitt settled, tific men, we are left in doubt as to forming the village of that name. His whether certain periods of this was the first log house erected in the globe's growth occupied 20,000,000 village. years or fr^pi four hundred to five, South the village of Aetna had its hundred million years. Thus when beginning with the settlement of Mr. we are asked to write of "Old Times" Richard Pclling and family along the we wonder whether we have cheek St. Mary's river and Snake creek, where they were joined by Mr. Ge«. enough to call anyone an "Old-Timer" M. Hudson, Neils Hansen and others. in a region that may be so old that it To the southwest (17 miles) Moun­ is impossible to compute its age. tain View was the cattle ranches Suffice it, however, to say that village where another prosperous cen­ Cardston is very young, just 33 years tre began to thrive. Lumbering in •Id, for it was at the end of October, the nearby foothills also claimed at­ 1885, that the first homestead was tention at this point. taken up, just three-quarters of a Not until the year 18"8 did the col­ mile above where the town now onies begin to develop. This came stands, the pre-emption to this home­ about through the inauguration of the stead being now a part of the town. irrigation enterprise of the old A. R. So oUr remarks will apply between & I. company. This was undertaken the end of the little war of 1885 and largely through the initiative of Mr. the end of the "Big War" of 1914 to C. A. Magrath, who with President C. 1918. Even though this period is but V. Card, head of the Mormon colonies a scrap in t»be eternity of time, it is in Alberta, concluded an arrangement very important to us and it is very whereby the so-called Mormon remarkable that a piece of ground church undertook the construction of that may have been hundreds of mil­ the St. Mary's canal to connect par­ lions of years in construction, should tially by natural waterways with the have been left so long idle and sud­ City of Lethbridge and country east. denly taken up by the hand of man. Soem $45,000 worth of work was through the accidental wanderings of agreed to be performed on this pro­ fc ifa prisoners who plumped down ject by the church, for which cash onTjee's Creek and made a start to and land were to be given as pay­ mould the material left by the hand ment. of time to the uses and the benefit of With the undertaking of this work man in general, for when we grow a many settlers from Utah and Id.ihe crop and sell it, now-a-days, it is hard came into the country and villages to figure who will eventually eat it. were started at Stirling and Magrath As we sit dreaming of the older Temple of Latter Day Saints, at Cardston <luring the year 1899. Temporary days and pondering in what form we houses were built by the church at Stirling for the accommodation of shall try and relate something there­ In the making of a new country that the kindly town cows took the edge Back in 1886 no Mormons, were about, the refrain of the following Previously the wise men of the "East" those shipping in their effects by rail told us tba,t if we developed the towns country is too often looked upon, by off and reduced the grass land to a thought of in Alberta, but they were to this point. lines comes back to one: the towns would develop the country. the newcomer, as a place in which to more playable surface. Thus the old still pioneering in the Western States. But thinks wnt askew and neither sojourn for a short space, pile up dol- j prairie is put to a double use now-a- Idaho. Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona and Magrath was started by Cardston We are the men who always march a flourished as they were expected to lars and spend them in a more thick- | days, for the grass is manufactured were in Old Mexico, where several men like Bishop Levi Harker, A. Mer­ little bit before, do, so we turned around and went at ly settled location under the admiring , into creamery butter, and the weary colonies were struggling toward bet­ cer. J. W. Evans, Z. W. Jacobs and Though we can't tell the reason for it our own way and now the develop­ eyes of other civilized bipeds. Then business man stretches his legs and ter things in that misruled land. And others, and in nine months' time was the same, ment of the country is our first con­ comes another generation that does [ rests his mind in travelling over the it was to Mexico that Mr. Chas. Ora reported as having a population of We're the fools that pick the locks sideration and the towns develop not find it so easy to sprint in dollars \ cleared surface playing golf and many Card thought of going when he 300. that hold the doors, themselves, having something to and get. Later this generation begins 1 people are benefitted thereby, sought the advice of President John The canal work was very heavy Play and lose and pay the candle for stand up and grow upon. Later when to build better houses and barns and j Other cases of evolution occur to Taylor, then head of the Church of near this point where the water was the game our mining laws are more liberal, and better fences, and finding itself often I one as we ramble on. Human nature Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.