SUBMITTED PHOTO LESLIE MALTIN
The Alberta town of Rowley has seen plenty of ups and downs over the past century.
Leslie Maltin
Less than a year before the new millennium, the last train passed through Rowley. And now the Alberta prairie town’s future may once more belong to the ghosts.
In the mid-1970s, Rowley, which once boasted a population of about 500 in the 1920s, was a beat-up dying community, with rows of empty houses and businesses, and inhabited by only a few dozen prairie-hardened souls. But one night, a few party-happy locals, whose liquor supply was fast dwindling, decided on a quick solution — a “B & E Party” at a boarded-up old saloon. The bar was fixed up and named Sam’s Saloon after one of the previous owners who had been a respected member of the community. The brazen men then got talking about sprucing up the pioneer community to make it a heritage stop for tourists. For the next quarter century, locals restored old homes and businesses and soon visitors were attracted from all parts of Alberta, Canada and the U.S.
Part of Rowley’s charm is that while locals have spent thousands of dollars fixing up many of the old community’s homes and buildings to reflect the town’s pioneer days, there are still many others left abandoned, and offer ghost towners wonderful photo opportunities. But 1999 also saw the regional train service through Rowley end and locals are worried about the community’s future.
“That’s really going to hurt our cash flow,” said one old-timer, noting as many as 900 train tourists a week would get off at the Rowley station, which also serves as the town’s museum. However, the town, where the most recent official population count was 8, is still hoping word-of-mouth will keep tourists coming. Locals meet at the community hall year-round, and gladly offer visitors a tour, sometimes even in the cold winter months.
Many locals in the Rowley area agree the town slipped into ghost town status in the seventies. But slowly, and then spectacularly in the 1980s, it rebounded to prominence. But now the prairie phantoms are once again calling.
Since the early years of the 20th century Rowley has been a train town, a place where people crowded the station daily to meet people, load grain and receive supplies. Before roads and highways were built, trains carried their hopes and dreams through drought, grasshoppers, storms, fires, depression, and modern-day urbanization. But in 1997, the last engine passed, and the ghosts are calling again.
It should also be noted, that Rowley was a shoot site for the films “Legends of the Fall” (1993) and “The Magic of Ordinary Days”(2003) in addition to “Bye Bye Blues” (1988)
———
Driving to Rowley
Take Highway No. 1 west to AB-56N (170 km), continue to Drumheller (73.6 km); turn right onto Second Street West/AB-56 N/AB-9 E (signs for Tyrrell Museum); follow AB-56 N (34.3 km), turn left onto Township Rd 324 (5 km)
