Town of Carstairs Flag - Carstairs, AB
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 51° 34.037 W 114° 05.851
11U E 701153 N 5716904
Founded in 1903 and incorporated in 1966, Carstairs began as a farming community and railway stop on the CPR main line between Calgary and Edmonton.
Waymark Code: WMPJ4B
Location: Alberta, Canada
Date Posted: 09/06/2015
Views: 1
The flag of the Town of Carstairs flies proudly in front of the Carstairs Town Hall, once the home of the Co-op Food Store. The flag contains the coat of arms of the town, which displays a beef critter at the top (looks to be a Hereford), a representation of a gas plant at the bottom with a Scottish Tartan as a background, which represents the town's heritage. The town was named after Carstairs, South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
The town still serves a large farming area, though today its main industry seems to be construction. Now with a population of over 3,000, its proximity to Calgary, 30 miles to the south, has made it a bedroom community of that city, which has a present population of over a million.
Carstairs is expected to grow exponentially in the next decade to a population of 13,000 or so. That's quite a growth spurt. Methinks, however, that with the recent reduction in oil prices, which are supposed to remain at a lower level for the foreseeable future, the resulting slowdown in the Alberta oil patch will also slow the growth of towns like Carstairs.
Located in central Alberta along Highway 2A and surrounded by oil and gas fields, much employment still originates in the oil patch. The town has the usual complement of services and facilities, with a fairly new arena complex, curling rink, a first class golf course and a second nine hole course, parks, trails, green spaces, campgrounds, ball diamonds and soccer fields and a school that keeps getting larger. The nearest hospital is 7 miles north, in Didsbury.
