Article

Hanna

Published Online March 30, 2008

Last Edited March 4, 2015

Hanna, Alta, incorporated as a town in 1914, population 2673 (2011c), 2847 (2006c). The Town of Hanna is situated 219 km northeast of Calgary and was named after David B. HANNA, 3rd vice-president of the Canadian Northern Railway, and was first settled in 1912.

Hanna, Alta, incorporated as a town in 1914, population 2673 (2011c), 2847 (2006c). The Town of Hanna is situated 219 km northeast of Calgary and was named after David B. HANNA, 3rd vice-president of the Canadian Northern Railway, and was first settled in 1912. As a Canadian Northern divisional point, it had a 10-stall roundhouse, built in 1913, and excellent connections to Saskatoon and Calgary. Wheat, subject to the booms of the 1910s and late 1920s and the busts of the mid-1920s and 1930s, and cattle have made Hanna the main service centre for the shortgrass country of Alberta. Today's resources include thermo-coal, clay, sand/gravel, petroleum, natural gas and bentonite. Hanna is the subject of the 1946 sociological study by Jean Burnet, Next-Year Country: A Study of Rural Social Organization in Alberta (1951).