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Building a Town a Day
By James Oliver Curwood
Technical World Magazine June 1910
It is expected that the next 18 months will see the culmination of one of the greatest colonization movements in history, for during that time it is schemed to build and populate 220 towns in the Dominion of Canada, an average of one town for every other week day in that year and a half!
By the middle of 1911, if Canadian government officials are not wrong in their estimate, these 220 towns will have their official places and names on the map of Canada, populations of each 100 to 1000 people each, and they will have been made largely by good American citizens from over the border. Recently Andrew D. Davidson , one of the big men of the Canadian Northern, said to me, "I will show you how towns and cities are born, as they never have been born in any country of the world before." And he did. Today, the greatest railway building epoch in the history of any country is in progress in Canada, not withstanding that she already has more mileage according to population than any other nation of earth. Nine thousand miles are projected or under construction.
The history of these towns is to be unlike that of any other in existence. They are not to be merely planted and named, and then left to vegetate. They are to be forced into life. This is the remarkable thing about them.
It must be understood, that in Canada the government and the railroads work hand in hand. Each of these new towns is to be located in a fertile farming region or in a county abounding with mineral or timber wealth. A station is to be built at each place at the very first. The elevator companies of Canada have agreed to build at least one elevator. Hereafter, to a very large extent, the tide of immigration is to be directed in channels especially cut out for it. The army of 300 Canadian agents, who are working almost night and day for settlers in the United States are already beginning to receive their instructions. Here is the way it works: A farmer, with a couple of husky sons, wants to emigrate to Canadian farmlands. He wants free homesteads. Consequently he must go to one of the Canadian agents to be 'booked' for one of these 220 new stations. When he reaches his destination, he is met by an agent and since he and his sons are getting land for free they can be placed anywhere.
In a recent interview Col. A.D. Davidson of the Canadian Northern said, " The people of America are pouring into our West as never before. It is not the poor and destitute that come, but the best among the people of the country, men with ambition and energy and most instances with modern machinery and up to date ideas.'
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