Local: Regina History - Railway and Mining Boom
Early settlers were given 160 acre land grants by the government. In September of 1881, Edward Carss settled where the Qu'Appelle River and Wascana
Creek met. He is credited as the first settler in Regina. The next summer, six settlers set up camp
near present-day Wascana Lake, and were joined a few days later by 11 more homesteaders joined
them. This was the humble beginning of Regina.
The town of Pile-O-Bones was a thriving western settlement, but was finally renamed in 1883 by Princess Louise, the wife of Canada’s Governor General, in honour of her mother Queen Victoria. The building of the trans-continental railroad changed the city's landscape, making the vast Saskatchewan prairie accessible to thousands of new immigrant-farmers. In 1883,
the first dam was built across Wascana Creek, just west of the present Albert Street Memorial Bridge.
In 1884, Regina had 400 buildings and a population of around 1,000. In 1886 the transcontinental railroad began carrying passengers and freight to the Pacific Ocean, and the city began to grow quickly being a jumping off point for new settlers in the area. Settlers were attracted from many parts of Europe, particularly those persecuted for their religious beliefs including the Mennonites and Hutterites from Germany, and Doukhobours from Russia.
The city became a major commercial centre as agricultural goods were sold for eastern consumption, and the farmers bought manufactured goods, brought from the east by the railroad. Later potash. which is used in fertilizer, was found near Melville.
on September 4, 1905, Saskatchewan became a province, with it first Premier Walter Scott. On May 23, 1906 it was declared that Regina would be the provincial
capital.
More history of Regina
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