The Place:
Magrath was named after Charles Alexander Magrath. Magrath post office was established March 1st, 1900, with Ammon Mercer as first postmaster. The Magrath Civic Building, the seat of local government, was completed in 1969 and is in Cardston County, Alberta, Canada. Magrath was first settled by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Utah and Idaho in 1899 who had arrived to provide labour for the construction of the
Galt Irrigation Canal. Magrath has a current population of approximately 2,450 residents, and is a rural community still surrounded by farmland.
Magrath, Alberta
Magrath is one of two settlements whose origins are tied to the construction of the Galt Canal. In 1898 the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints entered into a contract with the Alberta Irrigation Company, which called for the Church to provide labour to construct the Galt Canal and to develop two villages of 250 persons each.
After the contract was signed, Charles 0. Card, founder of Cardston, Alberta, travelled throughout Utah encouraging Latter-day Saints to move to Southern Alberta. Through pamphlets and articles in a major Salt Lake City newspaper, Card encouraged those "Saints who desire Good Places to make Comfortable homes" to emigrate. To ensure that the Church met its contractual obligations, the First Presidency called men and their families to Canada to assist with building the canal and settling the designated communities. On April 20, 1899, Charles Heber Dudley arrived in Magrath as the first permanent settler. Within a few months, a number of homes, a tithing barn, and other structures were completed.
The development of Magrath followed the pattern long used by the Latter-day Saints in establishing a community. The village layout was based on Joseph Smith's concept of the "plat of the City of Zion." Unusually wide streets arranged in a grid pattern oriented toward the cardinal points of the compass characterize Magrath as a significant example of a Latter-day Saint agricultural village.
Placed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2012
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The Garden City
Magrath is known as “The Garden City” for several reasons: its natural garden-like setting along Pothole creek; its tree lined streets and well-tended gardens; it unique origin and layout as a religiously-based utopian new community; and its similarities with the contemporaneous “Garden City” new town movement in England. Closeness to nature was a key feature of the Garden City movement. Magrath and the Galt Canal were established in 1899 with funds largely raised in England. The first English “Garden City” was established in 1903.
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The Person:
Charles Alexander Magrath
(April 22, 1860 – October 30, 1949) was a Canadian land surveyor and statesman. He conducted foundation surveys of the North-West Territories (NWT) from 1878 until 1885. He joined Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt and Elliott Torrance Galt in their western industrial enterprises as a surveyor, later becoming Elliott's assistant and Land Commissioner of the North Western Coal and Navigation Company. He was also the first mayor of Lethbridge, Alberta District, NWT, which has a major street (Mayor Magrath Drive) named after him.
Magrath was a member of the North-West Legislative Assembly from 1891 to 1898. He was appointed as a cabinet minister in the Frederick Haultain administration in 1897. In the 1891 and 1894 general elections and an 1897 by-election, he represented Lethbridge and was acclaimed.
Magrath was elected to the House of Commons representing the Medicine Hat constituency (1908–1911). He was fuel controller during the Great War and chairman of Ontario Hydro and the Canadian section of the International Joint Commission. He also served on the Newfoundland Royal Commission of 1933.
He married Margaret Holmes White Mair in 1887. After giving birth to a son, Charles Bolton, in 1888, she died in June 1892 of complications following the birth of a daughter. In 1899, he married Mabel Lillian Galt, a daughter of Sir Alexander and half-sister of Elliot Galt. Two daughters were born of this union: Amy and Laura.
Magrath has been called "The Father of Irrigation in Southern Alberta". However, during his lifetime he was quick to acknowledge the contributions of Charles Ora Card, the LDS Church, and Elliot Galt to the development of irrigation in the Lethbridge region. The community of Magrath is named in his honour.
From Wiki Wand