The Village of Mannville History
Beginnings…
Mannville Historical Telephone Exchange a traveller coming into the Mannville District in 1900 would doubtless have come from the direction of Chailey on what was known as the Battleford trail.
There was nothing at that time to indicate there would ever be a Village of Mannville. The whole country side was a vast wilderness.
There were quite large lakes in those days which since dried up. One example of this is the Mannville Lake which must at one time have covered 100 acres. It is now practically dry and has never at any time reached the level of the early 1900’s.
In 1903, the railroad survey came through and traffic abruptly swung from the Battleford trail to the line of stakes that was destined to become the Canadian Northern Railway.
The hamlet of Old Mannville, never having been surveyed, was a squatter’s town. Although the railway survey had been completed in 1903, the townsites were not surveyed until 1905. It was known that the name of the village was to be Mannville, the name having been chosen by Davidson and McRae, C.N.R. land agents at Winnipeg. It was chosen in honour of Mr. Mann, one of the partners in the firm of McKenzie and Mann who held the contracts for the grading. The line came in from the east reaching Edmonton in the fall of 1905.
Application was made for a school and a charter was granted. The school, however, never was built at Mannville. When it was eventually built it was located 2 miles farther west and was called “Birch Creek”. It did, however, have the effect of causing the new town to name their district the “New Mannville School District”, a name they kept for many years.
Nineteen hundred six saw the greatest rush of settlers into the Mannville
District, and by the end of 1907, nearly all the available homesteads were taken. As it takes 3 years to “prove up” a homestead it naturally followed that many were abandoned and some were canceled when the homesteaders failed to live up to the terms. Some of these canceled and abandoned homesteads were retaken as late as 1910, but by this time the settlements were back by 10 to 18 miles from the village.
Most of the homesteaders were hard up. About the only cash crop was butter and eggs, and the market for these was very limited. There was the odd settler coming in from the Old Country or Eastern Canada with money who provided work for some of them. Many worked on the railroad during 1905. Some had trades, at which they worked in Edmonton during the summer, and put in the six months required to prove up the homestead during the winter. However, it was mostly bachelors who were able to do this, the married men having to stay with the homestead year round and take what work was offered locally. Generally speaking, the homesteaders were slow in getting started through having to quit their own work to earn money to carry on.
However, stay they did, and the course of events have proved that their faith was not too badly misplaced. Mannville has provided a standard of living which compares favourably with most centres of the province.
The above is only a small sample of the rich history of the Village of Mannville, which, along with the comprehensive history of the Village, can be found in the book, Trails to Mannville and District, published by the Mannville and District Old-timers’ Society.