WHITLA

NAME: Whitla
COUNTY: N/A
ROADS: 4WD
GRID: 2
CLIMATE: Mild summer,cold winter
BEST TIME TO VISIT: Summer
COMMENTS: SW Corner of Alberta
REMAINS: Nothing.
Whitla is a whole street of abandoned buildings. Located 20 miles southwest of Medicine Hat, it is a real ghost town. The town began with the opening of the area to homesteading in 1908. It was named for R. J. Whitla, a Winnipeg merchant who visited the district in 1885 when it was a mere siding on the newly built Turkey Track Railway. In 1910 there was a general store followed by a lumberyard, a hardware store, a farm machinery firm, a Union Bank, several cafes, and three auto repair shops. During 1917 drought, dust storms, grasshoppers, and rabbits began consuming the crops and chasing the settlers away. The exodus from Whitla had been gradual throughout the 1920s and increased noticeably through the ‘30s and ‘40s. By the end of World War II, the town had all but vanished. H.B. Chenoweth

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