Our History

Anthony Henday, the first European to enter Alberta, crossed the Saskatchewan/Alberta provincial border near the Village of Chauvin in 1754.

In the year 1908, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway reached Chauvin. In July of that year, the Chauvin town site was surveyed and lots were available to purchase. This was followed by a rush of settlers and soon the district was fairly thickly settled. Chauvin now became a distributing centre, not only for the mail, which had previously been delivered only to Ribstone, but also for supplies of every kind. The railway had not yet reached Macklin or Provost and farther south, so Chauvin was the shipping point for the entire district. Many supplies were delivered by train to Chauvin and then distributed throughout the area.

Also in that year, a store was erected, which was Chauvin's first building. Later followed other businesses such as a boarding house, a livery and feed stable, and a lumberyard. There were several contractors' camps located east and west of Chauvin, one at Ribstone Creek and another at the fourth meridian. The first problem faced by the settlers was how their children were going to receive an education. In May of 1910, the first meeting was held to discuss the possibilities of forming a school and an executive body was formed. The first regular meeting of the new school board was held on June 10, 1910. The first school was built for $600.00.

The Village itself was incorporated on December 30, 1912 and was named after George Von Chauvin, an engineer with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. At this time, the hotel was built. Chauvin grew rapidly from its then small population of only twenty-five people to its present size of just under four hundred.

After a lot of discussion took place in 1915, it was decided that a second school would be necessary. This one was built at a cost of $670.00. In 1917, these schools were crowded once more and plans were made to build a four-room school in which the high school students from surrounding districts could be consolidated into the one school. These plans were tabled when it was announced that a separate Catholic school would open in the fall. The year 1924 brought yet another addition to the school at a cost of $950.00.

In 1911, the first bank, the Merchants, opened its office in a small granary-like building that was hauled into town. In 1920, the bank moved to a new brick building, on the corner across from the hotel. Two years later the Merchants Bank merged with the Bank of Montreal. The Union Bank of Canada opened in 1919 on Main Street next to the fire hall as temporary quarters. In 1920, this bank moved in to the building vacated by the Merchants bank.

The Royal North-West-Mounted Police out of North Battleford did the policing. This continued until around 1917, when the Alberta Provincial Police took over the barracks at Wainwright. At that time, Chauvin and Edgerton became part of their jurisdiction.