LAMERTON

NAME: Lamerton COUNTY: N/A ROADS: 4WD GRID: 2 CLIMATE: Mild summer,cold winter BEST TIME TO VISIT: Summer

COMMENTS: Central Alberta REMAINS: Nothing.

Lamerton was a full-fledged community with a hotel, stores, blacksmith shop, creamery, and all else required by a growing hamlet. First started in 1892 as a trading post and storehouse for travelers using the Tail Creek to Edmonton trail, there were only seven settlers in the area at the time. The settlement did not start to grow until about 1902. Soon the town had a lumberyard, a creamery, blacksmith shop, a hardware store, two butcher shops, livery stables, a post office, a general store, a dance hall, a meeting hall, and a Methodist Church. Total population at one time reached about 100. Lamerton’s demise was not quite the story heard over and over again—that the railroad passed it by. Not this time. Actually, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad came right through the town in 1910-11 heading from Calgary to Edmonton. The railroad wanted land for its use but the owner held out for too high a price. The railroad simply decided to build its own town two miles to the south. And it did. As soon as the site was surveyed, Lamerton business people began moving their buildings to the new townsite and started over again. By 1912, Lamerton was all but deserted and the town passed into history. H.B. Chenoweth

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