Assiniboia (Sask)

Assiniboia (Sask)

Assiniboia, Sask, incorporated as a town in 1913, population 2418 (2011c), 2305 (2006c). The Town of Assiniboia is located on the Canadian Pacific Railway line, 105 km south of Moose Jaw. Founded on arrival of the railway (1912), it was named after the former District of Assiniboia, which in turn was named for the Assiniboine who lived in the area. Situated on the brown soil of the short-grass prairie in the heart of Palliser's Triangle, it developed as a retail service centre for an agricultural community growing mainly wheat.

Its selection by Dominion Electric Power (1928) as the site for a generating station to provide power to one of Saskatchewan's first transmission lines led to Assiniboia supplying power to various southwestern communities for over 20 years. During WWII it was also a training base for allied airmen.

Though disastrously affected by the 1930s Depression, wartime developments and recovery of the farm economy enabled Assiniboia to reassert itself and thereafter gradually expand. It possesses a weekly newspaper and provides judicial and limited health services to the adjacent areas.