Acknowledgements | Preface | Saskatchewan Before Provincehood l Saskatchewan Populations & Premiers
1905 | 1915 | 1925 | 1935 | 1945 | 1955 | 1965 | 1975 | 1985 | 1995

Promoting the Wheat Pool
Weyburn Fair, 1927

Chautauqua at Richlea
c. 1928

Police clash with miners
Estevan, 1931

Relief train
Aberdeen, c. 1933

Unloading relief supplies
Herbert, c. 1933

Métis travelling in Bennett Buggy
Crescent Lake, 1933

1925

• Saskatchewan Wheat Pool completes construction of its first elevator at Bulyea.

1926

• Saskatchewan Wheat Pool buys the Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company. By 1929, the Wheat Pool will operate 970 grain elevators in Saskatchewan.
  
• The Ku Klux Klan arrives in Saskatchewan. At its peak, some 25,000 people are attracted to Klan meetings, but by the end of the decade, the Klan’s appeal has all but disappeared.
  
• The Regina Pats win Saskatchewan’s first Memorial Cup, Canada’s national junior hockey championship. The team was founded in 1917 and named after Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Patricia, and the regiment that bears her name.

1927

• The Canadian Pacific Railway opens the Hotel Saskatchewan in Regina.
  
• Coal is strip-mined for the first time in southeast Saskatchewan near Estevan. Production costs are lower than for deep seam mining and the price of coal begins to drop. To compete, deep seam mining companies in the area cut wages. Unrest among miners grows over the next few years.

1928

• The Saskatchewan Provincial Police disbands and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police take over responsibility for enforcing provincial laws.
  
• General Motors opens a vehicle assembly plant in Regina. A Chevrolet is the first to roll off the production line, followed eventually by McLaughlin- Buicks, Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles. The plant employs hundreds of people, but the venture is ill-fated as the Depression hits Saskatchewan a short time later, and the plant struggles to survive.
  
• Prince Albert National Park opens, the first national park in Saskatchewan.
  
• Saskatchewan’s only military camp is established at Dundurn.
  
• Danceland opens at Manitou Beach, near Watrous. The hardwood dance floor, which floats on a cushion of horsehair, is one of only four such designs in North America.
  
• Ethel Catherwood, known as the “Saskatoon Lily,” is Canada’s first woman to win an Olympic gold medal. She wins in the running high jump event in Amsterdam.

1929

• On the farm, there are signs of increasing mechanization. The combine begins to replace the threshing machine. Harvest excursions, which for years had brought men from eastern Canada to help with the harvest, end as a result.
  
• The stock market crash leads to a world-wide crisis and depression. Saskatchewan will be especially hit hard when nearly a decade of drought follows.
  
• The Saskatchewan Power Commission is formed to deliver electricity to Saskatchewan communities.
  
• Saskatchewan is the first province to provide free tuberculosis treatment.

1930

• When Saskatchewan became a province in 1905, control of its natural resources was retained by the federal government. Twenty-five years later, Ottawa finally transfers control to the province. Manitoba and Alberta gain similar powers.
  
• Saskatchewan’s first hydro-electric plant, located at Island Falls on the Churchill River, begins operations.

1931

• Striking coal miners in southeast Saskatchewan converge on Estevan to protest low wages and poor living conditions. Three miners die in a clash with police on Estevan’s main street.
  
• The Depression gives way to the “dust bowl” as drought grips the wheat belt. Black blizzards sweep across the southern plains. The first rail cars arrive with relief supplies from other provinces.

1932

• Saskatchewan introduces a provincial income tax for the first time.
  
• With drought and depression, the economy nosedives and jobs are scarce. Relief camps are set up across Canada to keep unemployed men out of the cities and out of sight. They are put to work but receive no pay, only an allowance of 20 cents a day to buy tobacco or other personal items. The relief camp at Dundurn will become one of the largest in the country.
  
• The Saskatchewan Farmer-Labour party is founded in Saskatoon. It will become the Saskatchewan Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, part of a new national political party.

1933

• The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, formed a year earlier in Calgary, meets in Regina and adopts the Regina Manifesto which aims to replace capitalism with a new social order. It advocates nationalization of railways, banks, public utilities and other services.
• Regina hosts the World’s Grain Exhibition and Conference in the midst of worsening depression. Wheat prices plummet to just over 39 cents per bushel, the lowest ever. Ironically, the number of grain elevators in Saskatchewan peaks at 3240.
• The Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation is founded.

1934

• Saskatchewan’s first successful natural gas well, Discovery No. 1 near Lloydminster, begins commercial production.
  
• Boxing Day is first observed in Saskatchewan.