The plaque bearing the text below is mounted at the northwest corner of a small park set aside as a historical monument to the settlers of the Stirling area. The park has a plethora of informational plaques outlining the history of settlement and development of the area. It is at the eastern entrance to the village from Highway 4, which is just to the east.
Stirling Agricultural Village was designated a national historic site of Canada because it is the best surviving example of a Mormon agricultural village.
This kiosk and the nearby restored railway station are open May long weekend to Labor Day, Friday to Monday. Stirling is 28 km. SE of Lethbridge on Highway 4. They and the village are free to visit.
Stirling, Alberta
The first settlers for the town of Stirling arrived on May 5, 1899, led by Theodore Brandley. These settlers were Latter-day Saints from the United States who came to Southern Alberta at a call from their prophet. They were to assist in the construction of the Galt Canal and settle two new communities in fulfillment of a contract between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Alberta Irrigation Company.
Leaving their homes in Utah and Idaho, they settled the villages of Stirling and Magrath and immediately set to work building houses, planting crops, and establishing communities. Assisted by earlier settlers from nearby Cardston, they also began work on the Galt Canal.
Latter-day Saint immigrants brought with them a uniquely Mormon settlement pattern. Based on Joseph Smith's "plat of the City of Zion," and modified to meet the needs of each specific location, the system is known for roadside irrigation ditches and unusually wide streets laid out in a grid pattern oriented to the cardinal points of the compass.
Celebrated today by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada as a National Historic Site, Stirling is a prime example of a Mormon agricultural village. Many of the traits of the "plat of Zion" are still visible.
Placed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2012
Stirling Agricultural Village
Stirling Agricultural Village occupies one-square mile (260 hectares) of land in the heart of the short-grass prairie of southern Alberta, appearing as an oasis of trees and farmsteads amid a flat, open landscape. The one-section plat is laid out in a regular grid of wide streets with each ten-acre (4.1 hectares) block divided into large lots with widely spaced, wood-frame houses, agricultural outbuildings, gardens and animal pens. The village also includes a commercial area, a school and a church.
Stirling Agricultural Village was designated a national historic site of Canada because it is the best surviving example of a Mormon agricultural village.
The heritage value of the village resides in its illustration of a typical Mormon settlement form from the turn of the twentieth century. It was introduced to southern Alberta by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who settled in this region during the Great Wheat Boom era from the late 1890s to 1914. The village of Stirling was founded in 1899 through a partnership between the Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company and the LDS Church to bring American immigrants to build an irrigation canal and found two villages, Stirling and Cardston.
From the National Heritage Register