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A Brief History of Mountain View County
"Mountain View- a land which has yielded all the riches the West so laden with golden visions ever promised."
- Bodil J. Jensen
During the first decade of the 21st Century, Mountain View County has become a prospering community in the heart of what has become known as Canada's economic "Western Tiger."
It's remarkable that just a little over a century ago, the same slice of land was untamed wilderness, void of permanent settlement.
Just to the east of where the busy Queen Elizabeth II highway runs today, people and goods traveled between Calgary and Fort Edmonton by wagon, along the original Calgary and Edmonton Trail. 1
While the North West Territories had long been part of Canada, the first government surveys of the area between Calgary and Edmonton weren't made until 1883, around the time when the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived from the east in Calgary. In 1890, the C & E (Calgary and Edmonton) Railway was chartered and construction began, with the line running north through Mountain View by the end of the year.
While a handful of squatters had arrived pre-1890, settlement in Mountain View didn't begin in earnest until the arrival of the C & E Railway. On July 27, 1891 2 the first through train made the trip from Calgary to south Edmonton, marking the beginning of regular scheduled passenger train service for the next 60 years.
After 1891, homesteaders began to arrive in the region from across Europe and North America, with settlements sprouting up around the fourth (Carstairs), fifth (Didsbury) and sixth (Olds) sidings. The village of Olds was the first to incorporate in 1896, with Didsbury following in 1901 and Carstairs in 1903.
Settlement in the early days was typified by ethnic and usually religious groups living in close-knit communities or colonies. Notable among them were a group of Mennonite families who homesteaded in the Didsbury area from Europe via Ontario around the turn of the 19th century. A large number of German settlers from the American Midwest also settled around Olds; and a group of Norwegian pioneers blazed a trail westward towards Sundre and Bergen. 3
It was also around this time that the first schools began to organize, with Olds School District No. 235 being the first to be recognized in Mountain View in 1892 4. By 1930, almost 90 school districts had been created to serve the Mountain View region (see Map 1). The one-room school house remained a fixture of rural life until 1936, when the Social Credit government amended the School Act to allow for the creation of larger school divisions 5. Within a decade, most of the province's rural schools had been consolidated into one of 50 larger school divisions.
As the population began to explode, so did the needs of the growing population. This led to the formation of local government, though the creation of Local Improvement Districts (see Map 2). These L.I.D.s were relatively small administrative units, generally no bigger than 72 square miles in size, and were responsible for a number of limited duties including setting local tax rates, and keeping track of necessary local improvements. 6
In Dec. 1911 the Alberta government brought forward new legislation designed to introduce greater self government into rural areas of the province 7. Specifically, the Municipal Act of 1912 encouraged L.I.D's to consolidate with one another to form larger rural municipalities. 8
Initially the response to the idea of consolidation was unenthusiastic. A majority of rural residents in Mountain View voted against consolidation with other L.I.D's in a series of plebiscites held in 1912. Only the Rural Municipality of Mountain View No. 310 would be created out of four improvement districts around Olds and Didsbury, making it one of 55 rural municipalities to come into existence province-wide on Dec. 9, 1912.
While Mountain View was the first to consolidate, others would soon follow their lead. Local Improvement District No. 280, located east and south of Didsbury, was proclaimed into existence two weeks later, later organizing into the Rural Municipality of Rosebud No. 280 on Dec. 8, 1913. By 1918, the 11 LID's which encompassed most of present-day Mountain View County were pared down to eight rural municipalities (see Map 3); and one Local Improvement District in what is now the Water Valley area. 9
In her outstanding work chronicling the history of Mountain View County, Bodil J. Jensen outlines the duties facing the councils of these new rural municipalities:
The agenda of the municipal councils was largely repetitious, and routine; deciding on the areas for road improvement, petitioning the provincial government for bridges; setting and collecting taxes; distributing the school tax when this function was taken form the local school boards; enforcing the herd law and employing a pound keeper; regulating the building code; handling municipal hail insurance; distributing relief in times of need; and generally looking after the local needs of the residents as the county government does today. 10
In 1943, the provincial government decreed that the Municipal Districts of Rosebud No. 280, Beaver Dam No. 281, Mountain View No. 310 and Westerdale No. 311 were to be merged into one new municipal district, to be known and designated as the Municipal District of Dog Pound No. 280 as of Jan. 1, 1944. Just over three months later, the name of the Municipal District of Dog Pound No. 280 was changed to the Municipal District of Mountain View No. 280, with part of I.D. 280 surrounding the Bergen and Water Valley areas also being added to Mountain View at this time. In the following years, portions of the Municipal Districts of Arthur and Stauffer in the northeast, and Poplar Grove around Garrington, would be tacked on to the M.D. of Mountain View.
In 1945, the Municipal District of Mountain View No. 280 was renumbered as the Municipal District of Mountain View No. 49, to comply with changes occurring across the province. Eight years later, the M.D. of Waterloo northeast of the Red Deer River (including Bearberry and Sundre), and a final portion of I.D. 282, were added to Mountain View. 11
During this time the provincial government also moved to amalgamate municipalities and the local school boards. In 1955, the M.D. of Mountain View and Olds School Division No. 39 were made "coterminus" (meaning they shared the same boundaries). With the introduction of the County system of government in 1961, joint administration of municipalities and the school boards was initiated. This system would continue until 1994. Accompanying this change, the Municipal District of Mountain View No. 49 was formed into the County of Mountain View No. 17 as of Jan. 1, 1961. 12 William J. Bagnall of Dog Pound was selected as the County's first Reeve, a position he would hold until 1980.
The newly-formed County chose Didsbury as the seat of government, and in Oct. 1962, a new administration building was opened to house both the County administration and the school board. This building would continue to serve the County until a new state-of-the-art office was erected on Hwy. 2A between Olds and Didsbury in 2005.
On Jan 21, 1998 the County of Mountain View No. 17 officially changed its name to Mountain View County, as it continues to be known today.
- http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/pm.php?id=record_detail_child
&fl=0&lg=English&ex=131&rd=65235
- http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/pm.php?id=record_detail_child
&fl=0&lg=English&ex=131&rd=65259
- Jensen, Bodil J., Alberta's County of Mountain View- A History, Didsbury, Alta.: Mountain View County No.17, 1983 , pp. 15-16
- Jensen, Bodil J., Alberta's County of Mountain View,- A History, p. 99
- http://www.teachers.ab.ca/Albertas+Education+System/
History+of+Public+Education/A+Brief+History+of+Public+
Education+in+Alberta/The+Great+Depression.htm
- Jensen, p. 119
- http://www.municipalaffairs.gov.ab.ca/ms_DevelopmenLocalGovernment.htm
- Jensen, p. 119
- http://www.municipalaffairs.gov.ab.ca/cfml/profiles/data/0226_1.htm
- Jensen, p. 122
- Jensen, p. 122
- "Story of Rural Municipal Government in Alberta 1909 to 1983", Alberta Association of the Municipal Districts and Counties
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