Historic church gateway to Alberta’s past - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

Morleyville Historic Mission

The historic church at the end of this pathway was constructed in 1875. At that time native people were still hunting bison on the prairies. The young nation of Canada was only eight years old; the Canadian Pacific Railway still nine years in the future. And this church would become the heart of a thriving community, Morleyville, and for a time the largest settlement in what would be southern Alberta.

The story of this church is really the story of Rev. George McDougall who moved to western Canada with his family in 1862 to minister to the fur traders and native people. In 1873, the McDougalls established the first mission in the region and built this church. In doing so, they wrote an important chapter of Alberta's settlement history.

We invite you to spend 20 minutes to discover the story of this church, the people who built it and what their lives were like. A series of signs around the site will share this story with you.
Learn more about the McDougall Memorial United Church

Historic church
gateway to Alberta’s past

Dustin Ruth
Cochrane Times
Thursday, June 18, 2015 11:39:26 AM MDT

A solitary church stands near a natural ford by the Bow River along Highway 1A between Cochrane and Morley.

In its 140th year, the George McDougall Memorial United Church is a monument to what was once and a reflection to what has developed since.

“It was the predecessor for Calgary,” said Harold Jepson, newsletter editor for the McDougall Stoney Mission Society, “For me, it’s the foundation stone for the entire of Southern Alberta and the opening of the West.”

The year was 1873 when Rev. George McDougall, superintendent of the Methodist missions in Alberta at the time, moved from Fort Edmonton in the developing north to the south of the province with his family, friends and livestock, settling in an area that would come to be known as Morleyville.

Two years later, in 1875, the settlement was moved closer to the Bow River and with the help of Andrew Sibbald, a carpenter by trade who developed the first portable sawmill in the area, the church was built.

“There was nothing out here before the settlement,” said Sarah Harvey, secretary for the mission society, noting the struggles the early settlers had to overcome while establishing the mission.

The year the church opened, there were 23 settlers of European heritage living in Morleyville. By 1881, the amount of settlers collecting mail in the community doubled that of Fort Calgary and by 1891 it was reported that 388 had settled in Morleyville.

At it’s peak, the mission was a bustling settlement with 80 buildings including an orphanage, a trading post, a North West Mounted Police post, a school and residential homes.

“That was George’s vision,” said Harvey.

The church stopped services in 1920 and, after a new church was built in the town of Morley in 1921, was left abandoned to nature for the next 30 years.

In the 1950s, a Calgary United Church group found interest in the site and set forth to preserve it.

The few rotten boards and broken windows were replaced, but for the most part the church has been able to remain original with the addition of some vandalism dated from the 1920s.
Read more at the Cochrane Times