The Royal Canadian Mounted Police used Midnapore as a stop on their route from the junction of the Highwood and Bow Rivers (the old Blackfoot Trail). After the turn of the century, a train station was built when the Canadian Pacific Railroad’s main line branched to Fort Macleod and Lethbridge. Steam locomotives would stop and fill up with water. Queen Elizabeth visited that station in 1959.

It was never incorporated as a village or town site. Early beginnings showed Midnapore surrounded by a rural terrain, which included homesteads of well-known Calgarians, such as William Roper Hull, John Glenn, Samuel Shaw, and Pat Burns.

John Glenn was its first resident in 1874. He hauled trade goods to the United States and also built Southern Alberta’s first irrigation system. Glenn convinced Samuel William Shaw, a successful businessman and amateur scientist, to live on the neighboring homestead.

Glenn’s home was a place where people would leave their mail. Because there was no formal post office, Shaw applied to the government in 1884 to establish one. When he tried to register the name Fish Creek, there was already a Fish Creek in Saskatchewan. To establish a new name, he put a blindfold on his youngest daughter and told her to pin a spot on a world map. The pin landed on Midnapore, India.

Glenn’s irrigation system supplied William Shaw with the water he needed to operate his woolen mill, Alberta’s first heavy industry, which opened in 1889. The Sarcee called the mill “Chee-ista-atsis-ioi” (making cloth). Samuel’s wife Helen opened a dry goods store downtown on Calgary’s 8th Avenue to sell men’s apparel, raw fabric, blankets, and other mill products.
The influence of church and school was very strong in the community. In fact, the area is probably synonymous with one of Alberta’s most famous residents.

Born to a Quebec farming family in 1827, Father Albert Lacombe – Catholic missionary, teacher, translator, and treaty maker – made a lasting impact in Canadian, particularly Alberta history. One of the missions he sought out was situated along the banks of the Sturgeon River – a place eventually named St. Albert, after his patron saint and where Alberta’s first bridge was constructed.
When the Blackfoot threatened to stop the Canadian Pacific Railroad from building its route across their reserve in 1883, the railroad company asked Father Lacombe to negotiate with Chief Crowfoot to end the dispute. It was a course of event that could be said to play a major role in influencing western Canada. Without the railroad, there would be no growth.

Seeing the erosion of social standards amongst native populations, which were influenced from their contact with European traders and settlers, the Lacombe Home was constructed at Midnapore in 1910 as the Catholic priest’s final project to take care of destitute orphans and elderly.  

Upon his death in 1916, to allow both the Cree and Blackfoot nations share in the mourning, Father Lacombe’s body was buried at St. Albert, but his heart was separated and put to rest at Midnapore.

With Father Lacombe’s blessing, ownership and management of the Lacombe Home was entrusted to the Sisters of Charity of Providence. The home saw much change over the years. The long-term care facility opened in 1965. Today, the Father Albert Lacombe Home Society owns and operates the Father Lacombe Nursing Home with the Sisters of Charity of Providence serving as directors. The nursing home is the only accredited Catholic healthcare center in Calgary.

St. Mary's College campus, which sits at the site of the Father Lacombe Home along the edge of Fish Creek Provincial Park, is home to several of Midnapore’s historic buildings.
St. Paul’s Anglican Church is the oldest surviving church in Calgary. It was built in 1885 as a place for school and worship.

The influence of Midnapore’s ancestry continues to this day. Samuel Shaw’s oldest daughter was the area’s first teacher. She married Malcolm Millar (Millarville). Grandson Neil Brown is currently Calgary’s MLA for Nose Hill.   NL