There are strange things done in the noonday sun
By the men who moil for soil;
The prairie trails have their secret tales
That would turn your blood to oil;
The Southern Climes have seen queer times,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that day in the town of some renown
When they named it Pincher Cree.
There are many stories told about how Pincher Creek got its name, which was in use as early as 1880. Most of the stories involve prospectors and a pair of pincers (used for shoeing horses) lost beside the creek. In one version, someone goes back to get the pincers; in another the Mounties find them rusted years later; in still another the men are lost and only the pincers remain.
The town of Pincher Creek began in 1878 as a North-West Mounted Police farm and post. Eight men came from Fort Macleod with 200 horses, charged with the task of policing the territory from the U.S. border to the Porcupine Hills and west to the Rockies. They also farmed and raised horses for the force.
The area had rich grazing land, and was warmed in winter by chinooks, making it suitable for stock raising. In the 1880s, many Mounties retired as ranchers in the area. One of them, Charles Kettles, laid out the Pincher Creek townsite in 1882. It soon became a supply centre for the surrounding cattle country. In the 1900s, ranchers had to make room for the "sodbusters" who started growing wheat crops in the area. Natural gas was discovered at Pincher Creek and gas processing became an important addition to the local economy in the 1950s.
From the Alberta Heritage Marker