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Riverdale, Manitoba, incorporated as a municipality in 2015, population 1,803 (2021 census), 2,133 (2016 census). This municipality resulted from the amalgamation of the now-dissolved town of Rivers and municipality of Daly. The community of Rivers developed as a railway and military centre, 235 km west of Winnipeg.
History
Agricultural settlement in the region began in the 1870s. The Rivers townsite was established in 1907 as a terminal point on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. The early economy was built on the rail shops, roundhouse and local services.
In 1940, the town scrambled to accommodate an influx of military personnel when a British Commonwealth Air Training Plan navigation school was established nearby. After the Second World War, this base became a tri-service air training centre, with up to 3,000 military and 250 civilian personnel, compensating for diminished railway activity at Rivers. The base closed in 1971.
Public incentives were offered to support an industrial and urban-adaptation training centre for Indigenous people, but most of the manufacturers attracted to the site subsequently left or failed financially. The federal government sold the property in 1984, leaving Rivers as a locally oriented agricultural trading centre with some recreational activity at nearby Lake Wahtopanah.
The town of Rivers and the rural municipality of Daly were amalgamated to form the rural municipality of Riverdale in 2015 as a result of Manitoba’s Municipal Amalgamations Act.
