/
Sweetgrass, Montana. The depot was moved in 1999 to the
Galt Historic Railway Park at
Stirling, Alberta. NWC&NC built the steamboat
Baroness along with a number of barges in 1883 to ship coal to
Medicine Hat, Assiniboia District, by the
Oldman River. However, this soon proved to be impractical, as the time of navigable high water was short and undependable, and shoals and sandbanks proved hazardous. Only 3200 tons of coal was delivered to Medicine Hat in two years. Sir Alexander Galt had already conceived the idea of a
narrow-gauge railway, and in 1884 the federal government confirmed the British charter and empowered the NWC&NC to build a narrow-gauge railway from
Dunmore, Assiniboia, to its coal properties at
Lethbridge. NWC&NC contracted
Canadian Pacific Railway to buy a minimum of 20,000 tons of coal a year for five years at $5 a ton delivered to Medicine Hat. Canada's governor general, the
Marquis of Landsdowne, demonstrated the Dominion government's support of the Galt enterprises, by opening the Galts' narrow-gauge railway on October 19, 1885, in Lethbridge.
Alberta Railway & Coal Company In 1889, the Alberta Railway & Coal Company was incorporated by NWC&NC to build a narrow-gauge railway from Lethbridge to the
Canada–United States border, a distance of . Coincident with the building of the AR&CC line in 1890, the Galts received a
Montana charter for the narrow-gauge Great Falls and Canada Railway (GF&CR). The line ran from
Sweetgrass, opposite
Coutts, to
Great Falls, Montana. By extending their railway into the
United States, the Galts were able to enlarge the market for Lethbridge coal. In 1901, the GF&CR line was converted to standard gauge, and was purchased by the Montana Great Northern Railway, a subsidiary of the
Great Northern Railway (U.S.). Originally leased to the CPR in 1893, the line from Dunmore to Lethbridge (the AR&CC had acquired the properties of the NWC&NC in 1891), the line was upgraded to standard gauge, and was purchased outright in 1897 and became the first leg of the Crow's Nest Pass branch railway to the CPR's mineral properties in the Kootenay area of south-eastern British Columbia, with the right to extend the line to
Hope.
Alberta Railway & Irrigation Company To further the AR&CC's aims to develop the granted land and attract settlement, Elliott Galt was made aware that farming, not ranching, was the appropriate means of development, and
irrigation was the key. He was approached by
Charles Ora Card of the
Utah-based
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who detailed his vision of using the local river systems for irrigation. Card had visited Canada in 1886 and had returned in 1887 with a group that settled on Lees Creek and established the village of
Cardston, Alberta. Under
Brigham Young, the
Mormons had established a thriving community centred on
Salt Lake City and had pioneered and gained expertise in farming by irrigation in an area of deficient rainfall. An agreement was reached with the Mormons in 1891, whereby they would lease of land, bring in settlers, and provide labour for building the canal system. Economic depression and the lack of capital ended the project. Though temporarily thwarted the Galts continued to pursue their plan for irrigation and soon afterwards, with an upturn in the economy and a new
Liberal government with
Clifford Sifton as
Minister of the Interior, who pursued a vigorous policy of
immigration, the fortunes of the Galt enterprises changed for the better. An agreement was reached with the
Government of Canada, whereby in an exchange of lands the AR&CC was able to assemble a solid block of adjacent to the
St. Mary River thus making large-scale irrigation feasible. A new contract was signed with the Mormons in which they were to construct the canal system, and in return for their labour they were to be paid "one-half in cash and one-half in land, the land with water rights being valued at three dollars per acre, to a total of $75,000 and 25,000 acres." A remission of the survey fee of ten cents per acre was also granted by the government. The church-sponsored immigrants, to whom Galt advanced the costs of transportation, were to establish themselves in
hamlets, one each in the tracts south of Lethbridge – the communities of
Stirling and
Magrath were established in 1889 as per contract with AR&IC. The main canal was completed in August 1900. That same year the
St. Mary’s River Railway Company was incorporated to provide access and serve the settlers benefiting from the irrigation system. It reached Cardston in 1903, with permission to extend the narrow-gauge line. At
Raymond a
sugar beet factory was erected. A further consolidation of land took place in 1900, followed in 1902 by the purchase of the adjacent tract at one dollar an acre after the awarding of credits amounting to two dollars an acre. Payment was to be made in ten equal annual installments. The stipulation was that the land could not be sold for more than five dollars an acre, and the unsold balance, after 15 years, would revert to the government. In 1904 the Galt companies were merged into a new corporation, the Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company (AR&IC). The St. Mary Canal was enlarged and a beginning was made on a canal from the
Milk River, halted by the
Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 between the United States and Canada, dividing the waters of the two rivers equally between the two countries. In 1912 the Canadian Pacific Railway leased the AR&IC for 999 years, thus ending the independence of the Galt enterprise. ==See also==