page_title: Stirling, Alberta
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Stirling, Alberta / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Stirling, Alberta, Canada
context_page_description: Stirling is a village in the County of Warner No. 5, Alberta, Canada. The village is located on Highway 4, approximately 31 km southeast of Lethbridge and 72 km northwest of the Canada–US border.
  The Village of Stirling is also referred to as Stirling Agricultural Village due to its designation as a National Historic Site of Canada.
context_section_description: As the development of Railway took place throughout the 1880s in Southern Alberta, at the time Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) constructed a railroad from the city of Calgary to Fort Macleod. The Alberta Railway and Coal Company (ARCC) built a narrow gauge railway from Lethbridge to Medicine Hat in order to supply coal to the CPR.
  In 1899, the ARCC built another narrow gauge railway from Lethbridge, Alberta to Great Falls, Montana through the Coutts-Sweetgrass border crossing, closely following the route of the old Whoop-up Trail.
  Originally this railway was not built to promote colonization, but to open additional markets for Galt Coal in Montana. There was a limited amount of ranching along the route and no agricultural settlement. The ARCC opened the line to advertise land in parcels of 80-6401 acres for stock. The first station along the line south of Lethbridge was located near what was then known as "18 Mile Lake" (18 miles from Lethbridge), for locomotives to replenish water for their engines. This station siding was named after J. A. Stirling, an executive in a company in England that helped finance the ARCC. At that time, there were no people or buildings in the region, with the exception of station employees who lived in the section houses along the railway.
  Alberta Railway & Coal Company owned millions of acres of semiarid dry-land throughout Southern Alberta. This land was only suitable for ranching, not many new settlers saw potential in the dry landscape.
  Alberta Railway and Coal Company liked how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) was implementing irrigation in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah and nearby Cardston, Alberta.
  In 1899, it was decided to call upon the LDS Church to help colonize and establish this barren landscape. As part of the agreement, the LDS church and the Alberta Railway & Irrigation Company (Successor to Alberta Railway & Coal Co.) was to build an irrigation canal as well, establish two communities, within the year end of 1899. The Community of Stirling and Magrath. Upon completion of the St. Mary's Irrigation Canal, the Church was granted thousands of acres of land, which was given as payment to its missionaries, who worked on building the canal.
  With the arrival of irrigation on November 14, 1899, the Village of Stirling quickly developed adjacent to the ARCC and station house.
  Today, the St. Mary's Main Canal is 312 km long and continues to be a vital source of irrigated water for much of Southern Alberta.
caption: Stirling's first LDS meeting house and community hall c. 1905
exif: {}