Beiseker History: Floods!

Flooding on Beiseker's Main Street, 1914.
Glenbow Archives

T.L. Beiseker and his group of land speculators from the United States sold the land around what is now the village of Beiseker to eager settlers wanting new farmland.

When it came down to picking a site for the new town, they looked around at the options.  They needed a site that was adjacent to the then-new Canadian Pacific Railway right-of-way, and near the proposed Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (now, CN) right-of-way.  It had to be reasonably flat and preferably not saleable as farmland.

They chose here!  The site where the village now sits was a lowland, with small sloughs and wetlands.  It dried up every year, but it was sometimes too late to seed a crop.

Fill was brought in, buildings were constructed and the village grew. 

Unfortunately, the two railways interrupted the natural flow of water through the area, and on heavy run-off years (or after big storms) Beiseker always flooded.  There was many years where Main Street flooded.  In fact, there was a year when over a metre of water flooded Main Street in front of the King George Hotel, where the hardware store is today.

There is an myth of an unfortunate individual who staggered drunk out of the King George Hotel tavern, fell in the water and drowned, right there on Main Street.  I have yet to find any facts to back up this story.

In the 1950s, with the help of provincial funding, a drainage channel was built around Beiseker, just south of town.  That solved the severe flooding problems.  Because most of downtown Beiseker was built on a flat lowland, there are still some small problems with water pooling even today.  Practically every direction out of downtown Beiseker is uphill.  The only good flowing water channel is that one built over 60 years ago.  

Now that system is being burdened by water coming into Beiseker from Rocky View County lands, north of town.  If I had a chance to go back in time and talk to Mr. Beiseker, I'd advise him to build his town on higher ground!  

Beiseker's History: Fires!

King George Hotel fire, 1936.
From Beiseker's Golden Heritage

As you are aware, I am very proud of Beiseker's volunteer fire department which, in my opinion, is second to none in this great province. 

Firefighting today is a science and our volunteers are constantly upgrading their skills and training with courses and practices. 

But fire has been an enemy of this village since it started as a small hamlet a hundred years ago.  Early volunteer firefighters had little water and structures built entirely of wood and insulated with wood shavings to contend with. 

Despite the heroic efforts of those early volunteers, fire has destroyed much of Beiseker's historic buildings over the years. Here are a few of the early fires;

• In 1929, a fire destroyed the Hagel & Held Block on Main Street
• Sam Dattner's store at the west end of Main Street (near where Ng's restaurant is today) burned to the ground in the early 1930s.
• In 1932 the building built by E.C. Aisenstat at the corner of Main Street and First Avenue (now occupied by Apple Pie)  burned down.
• In 1936, the King George Hotel located at the corner of Main Street and Second Avenue (at the current location of the hardware store) was totally destroyed by fire. Approximately fifty years later, the Beiseker Hotel located down the street from the King George, suffered the same fate.
• In 1944, fire destroyed Mrs. E. N. Hagel's home.
• In 1944 the Roman Catholic Rectory (located in front of St. Mary's Cemetery) burned down.
• In 1945, fire destroyed the pool hall, barber shop, Stimac's confectionary, and the post office located on Main Street.
• 1953 saw the destruction by fire of the Beiseker Curling Rink, built in 1939.

Despite these horrible events, Beiseker and its folks survived and thrived.  There are likely dozens of acts of valour and heroism connected with those disasters now forgotten in time. 

Whenever I see our volunteer firefighters in their shiny trucks, I am reminded of how far we've come over the past hundred years.