The Industrial History of Medicine Hat

Medicine Hat owes its industrial origins in large part to the Canadian Pacific Railway. The CPR went through the southern part of the Northwest Territories in 1882, reaching as far as Maple Creek. A small tent town developed to the east around the present site of Medicine Hat as people gathered to await the arrival of railway construction in the spring. On June 10th, 1883 the first train steamed through, and soon brought lumber for wooden houses to replace the tents. The community grew quickly, incorporating as a town in 1899 and a city in 1906. By 1912 the population had reached almost 12,000. Strategically located between Winnipeg and Vancouver, the CPR selected the community as an ideal location for its Divisional Headquarters. With almost 1100 kilometers of track within the city limits, Medicine Hat had the longest railway mileage of any CPR division in Canada. The frequent service and extensive connections offered by the CPR attracted industries to locate in Medicine Hat. It soon became the largest distribution centre in western Canada and, as a recognized manufacturing city, received specially discounted rates from the CPR.

What Medicine Hat did not owe to the CPR it owed to its own geology. Natural gas was discovered in 1883 when the CPR struck a small flow of gas while drilling for water. Gas was initially used to pump water into the tanks which supplied the CPR engines, and gas jets were discovered continuously and accidentally as wells were bored or shafts sunk for other purposes. The commercial significance of natural gas did not become clear until a large well was struck in June of 1904. "Eureka We Have Found It!" the Medicine Hat News proclaimed on the front page of the June 16th issue. "There is no doubt now but that Medicine Hat will become the manufacturing centre of the west." Gas provided the three essentials for industrial production; heat, light, and power, at a fraction of the cost of coal. This discovery fuelled an industrial boom in the city which spanned the next decade.

As to the certainty of supply, the Medicine Hat News was happy to report by 1909 that the city’s gas came from "a formation which assures a supply in the Medicine Hat field for practically all time to come." The gas field lay at a depth of between 1,000 and 2,000 feet and was estimated to measure 150 square miles. The sheer abundance allowed the city extravagances, the most famous of which was that streetlights in Medicine Hat stayed lit day and night as it was cheaper to keep them burning than to pay someone to turn them off.

Natural Gas was critical to the development of Medicine Hat. Without this abundant natural resource, residents were aware that their city would likely remain a railway and ranching centre of two to  three thousand people. Medicine Hat’s industrial economy developed on the basis of cheap power, natural gas was the principal guarantee of the city’s importance and prosperity. The boom starting in 1905 quickly escalated as the city’s potential for industrial progress captured the imaginations of civic boosters, creating a burst of industrial development between 1910 and 1914. Mills and factories sprang up in the city’s industrial districts along streets with names like Railway, Tractor, Industrial, Steel, Factory, and Clay. Woolen mills, greenhouses, foundries, glass manufacturers, breweries, flour mills, machine companies, even a crayon manufacturing company: all were enticed by the city’s offers of free building sites, free water, tax concessions and cheap gas. This boom established Medicine Hat as the early Industrial Centre of Alberta, and helped create the city’s entrepreneurial identity.