The last significant Mormon migration to Alberta occurred
in 1901. This was not a migration formally instigated under
Church directive and control, as had been the earlier ones
to Cardston, Magrath and Stirling. Rather, this was a
spontaneous migration, largely motivated by the economic
opportunities being created in Southern Alberta, primarily by
Jesse Knight. Knight's venture - which would attract more
than 1,500 settlers in just a few years - was straightforward
and uncomplicated, at least in theory. On the prairie,
approximately mid-way between Magrath and Stirling, he
planned on building a sugar factory and a town. Settlers
thus would have triple opportunity for making a livelihood.
There would be employment in building and operating the
sugar factory, and in the work and business opportunities in its
supporting town and, as well, there would be the opportunity
to obtain relatively inexpensive land in the area for farming
and ranching.

It should not be assumed that Jesse Knight made his sugar
factory decision without counsel, or that LDS Church leaders
were not involved in encouraging him. The idea of growing
sugar beets in Alberta was not a Knight impulse. Apparently,
it had first been suggested to Charles Magrath, of the Alberta
Railway and Irrigation Company, by Apostle John W. Taylor,
in June 1892. However, the feasibility of the idea wasn't
challenged until November 1900. That spring, Charles
Magrath had passed out sugar beet seeds to some of the
farmers at Magrath and Stirling. In the fall, he had sent
samples of the harvested beets to the Utah Sugar Company,
at Lehi, Utah, for analysis. The report from Thomas R. Cutler,
manager of the Lehi plant - that most of the beets were
"wonderfully rich" and that "purity should not run lower
than 80 percent" - was one of the major factors in even
considering the possibility of building a sugar beet factory
in the Raymond area.

The records indicate that Jesse Knight knew of the Utah
Sugar Company report to Charles Magrath, but that he was
not impressed at the outset. Magrath, upon receiving the
report, had travelled to Salt Lake City to discuss with
John Taylor the possibility of LDS interest in a sugar beet
project. After discussion with his fellow LDS leaders, Taylor
had tried to interest Knight in building the sugar factory
in order to encourage colonization in Alberta. Knight's
reported response, that the ideas being presented to him
were absurd, and especially the one about the proposed
sugar factory, would have seemed final to most listeners.
But in January 1901, after much urging by his friends,
Jesse Knight sent his sons, Ray and William, to Alberta
to see the land he was being encouraged to buy.

Knight's original purchase

Ray and Will Knight were greatly impressed with the land
they examined near Spring Coulee, 15 miles east of
Cardston. Yet, when questioned later by their father as
to the character of the land they had seen, both were
rather hesitant in suggesting purchase. They agreed
it was wonderful grass country, but they "feared
something must be wrong, because there is so much
grass, yet so few cattle to eat it."

The business transaction which brought the Knights to
Canada took less than an hour, but it has influenced
the growth and economy of Southern Alberta ever since.
Charles Magrath, by his own admission, greatly misjudged
the intentions of Raymond and William Knight when he
met them in Lethbridge on their way home, and also
later when he met with their father in Salt Lake City.

"I decided to accompany the sons south to Salt Lake",
Magrath wrote later, "as there seemed to be a possibility
of disposing of some land when they met with their father.
All I was expecting was the possibility of a sale of perhaps
two sections - 1,280 acres at best." Magrath's own words
best describe the business transaction which then
transpired: "Jesse Knight - for whom I afterwards learned
to have the highest respect - was very direct with me. I
was asked to produce a map and the sons were called upon
to show him the lands they had examined. This happened
to be a block of some 30,000 acres near Spring Coulee. Mr.
Knight asked our price and terms. I believe our figure was
$2.50 per acre. To my utter amazement, he said, 'I will take
the entire block.' "

That original block of 30,000 acres became the Knight's
Bar K2 ranch. Jesse Knight came north in the early spring
of 1901 to see the land he had acquired. He arrived on 26
May and was met by his sons who had already begun
ranching in a rather large way, and by John W. Taylor who
was interested in selling more land for the Irrigation Company.

Jesse Knight was not disappointed in the acreage he had
bought, or in the other land which John Taylor subsequently
showed him. With characteristic discernment and - as his
son said later - without consultation, or fear of the outcome,
he seemed to have a clear vision of what he wanted to do
in Canada. Just two days after his arrival he proposed to
personally undertake the construction of a sugar beet factory
somewhere between the Mormon communities of Magrath
and Stirling. Such a proposal must have come as a
considerable shock to Charles Magrath. He knew the extreme
difficulties the Irrigation Company had been experiencing since
1890, trying to interest investors in company lands. Yet, here
was a fantastic offer - not by a group of men, but by only one
man. However, Magrath still faced a problem. Knight was
amazing to be sure, but was he really serious? His credibility
would have to be established.

As any student of Southern Alberta history knows, Jesse
Knight was indeed serious about building a sugar factory
and a town. On 16 August 1901- after contract terms had
been negotiated - he deposited $50,000 with the lrrigation
Company as a guarantee of good faith - and Raymond was
on the map!

Man of action!

Jesse Knight was a man of action. He had envisioned
a "fine settlement" during the first days of his Alberta visit
and he was determined to make it happen. His proposal
was to build a sugar factory and a supporting town. It did
not seem to matter to him that the land he chose was still
mostly unbroken prairie sod or that there were few inhabitants.
On the plus side, as he pointed out, there was water from
the canal for irrigation and the land was known to be capable of
producing beets of a high sugar content. By the middle of June,
negotiations had reached a level where Jesse Knight was to
receive 3,000 acres of Irrigation Company land immediately.
This acreage was to be plowed during the fall of 1901 and
made ready for cultivaton and for settlers arriving in the
spring. On 10 July, Knight further contracted to build a sugar
factory which would be ready for operation in the autumn
of 1903 - a factory he would guarantee to operate for a
minimum of 12 years. The Irrigation Company, in turn, would
allow Knight to purchase 226,000 acres of its land in the
Raymond district, at greatly reduced rates, because of his
investment in the factory.

Problems facing settlement

The infamous Palliser Report - which for years had acted as a
sign post directing people away from the Canadian prairies -
was falling into disrespect at the time, largely because of
the success of the Mormon communities in Southern Alberta.

However, in no way did that lessen the fact that investment
and immigration were virtually at a standstill at the turn of
the century. Forces which today explain, as a matter of
historical fact, the slow development of the Canadian Plains
were still very real then, and merited due consideration by
most prospective investors. American agriculture had just
shaken loose from the grip of its longest depression ever - a
depression which had sent farmers retreating from the
American Plains in great numbers during the 1880s and 1890s.
By paralyzing American agriculture, the depression had also
affected possible speculative interest in the Canadian Plains.
Also, the unstable political situation created on the prairies
by Louis Riel's Saskatchewan Rebellion of 1885, still had
sufficient emotional power to frighten away to safer regions
most land seekers or prospective investors. And lastly, although
failing, the dogma of the sterile American desert, still persisted
as real in many minds. However, because Alberta's Mormons
already were growing various kinds of crops on part of Palliser's
"sterile plain" that may have been all the proof Knight needed
to invest.

Perhaps the most critical factor most Alberta land investors had
to consider was the weather. The fact that sugar beets had
been grown successfully on an experimental basis for one
season in no way nullified the consistent weather situation
of extreme temperatures and scanty precipitation. It was true,
there would be irrigation for the beets, but the possibility of
having crops frozen three years out of five had to be seriously
contemplated. The settlers coming to the Canadian grasslands
had to consider bad weather as a matter of probability, not
possibility. Far more important than the climatic norms in
Southern Alberta, were the extremes of climatic variability.
The minimum time needed for complete cultivation and harvest
of a beet crop would demand optimum co-operation from the
weather each year. This was like asking for an annual miracle.
Beets could be raised certainly, but to plant and harvest them
was going to require rugged workers willing to toil in all extremes
of weather and for very little money. And, most of the Mormon
settlers were only minimally aware of this rather bleak picture.

Increasing population brings boom

Settlers began arriving in the Raymond area shortly after the
naming of the townsite. Most of them were young, optimistic
and happy. All of them seemed long on hope and short on cash.
They had been attracted to Raymond by the opportunity for
immediate employment and by the thought that they could
eventually better themselves by owning land in this frontier
country. Within six months, Raymond had 400 inhabitants,
plus several modern homes, a large church, a hotel, mercantile
store, meat market, lumber yard and bakery - even a railroad
station. In less than 12 months, the hamlet of Raymond had
become the village of Raymond and - by 1 July 1903 - the village
had formally become a town, dwarfing all her predecessors and
even rivaling fast-growing Lethbridge.

The population jumped to an official 1,568 by the 1906 census.
Population within a 100-mile radius was second only to Lethbridge's
total of 2,313, and easily surpassed Cardston's 1,001, Magrath's
884, Stirling's 438 and Fort Macleod's 1144.

The Immigrants

The early immigrants to Raymond - the majority from Utah - came
primarily to acquire land. Southwestern Alberta could offer them
what Utah no longer could in 1901. Here were extensive ranching
and farming lands at relatively low cost. A man with a small amount
of money, and a great deal of determination, stood an excellent
chance of establishing himself on a good farm. Under such conditions,
Jesse Knight's Raymond proposal looked attractive to many people.
It offered not only land on easy terms, but also the opportunity to
make immediate cash by working in the sugar mill and associated
projects.

There was no one out of work in Raymond during those early years.
The construction of the sugar factory and town provided almost
unlimited employment for anyone willing to work. Men with teams of
horses were especially in demand. Knight had promised that 3,000
acres would be ready for seeding to beets in the spring of 1903 and
to accomplish this he offered excellent wages. That summer a man
could plow and earn $2.50 per acre. Later, because of the hardness
of the prairie soil, Knight raised the price to $3 per acre. Many men
were attracted and dozens of teams were engaged in the work.
Each new furrow seemed to be symbolic of new opportunity. The
Mormon settlers were pioneers once more, and the town boomed.

All who came to Raymond were seeking new opportunities.
Alberta - a last frontier at the opening of the 20th century - issued
a powerful challenge. The virgin lands suggested fresh hopes and
new futures. And, to those whose lives had been uprooted, or
tried and tested for various reasons, here was an opportunity
to gain independence and to lose some of the encumbrances
of the past.

Primarily and outwardly, those new opportunities meant land and
the hope of economic stability. But inwardly, there were often more
emotional reasons which motivated the immigrants to come to this
challenging new land. For example, Charles W. Lamb's very private
reason for settlement here may have been quite typical of many of
the younger people who answered Alberta's call. Lamb's memories
of Utah were not always pleasant. "My father was a mean old
so-and-so was all the usually mild-mannered Lamb would say of
his Mormon Battalion parent.

Whatever happened between Charles Lamb and his father has
been lost in death, but it is known that Lamb had said he "was
tired of being bossed around, and bored with herding sheep and
cattle for others." He prized his individualism and apparently
believed that Alberta offered him the freedom which he desired
for himself and respected in others. He immigrated to Cardston in
1898 and, with his wife, then moved to the Raymond area in 1900.
Since he was a carpenter by trade, he helped build the new town.
In 1901, he became one of the first residents of Raymond - his
being the second family to settle in the town.

The Walton and Anderson families came to Raymond in 1902.
They had been miners at Scofield, Utah, but the disastrous
explosion there - which killed 208 fellow miners in May, 1900 -
ended their mining careers. Their own narrow escapes in the
disaster had had such a traumatic effect on them that they never
returned to the mines. After an unsettled year, they moved north
to establish farms near Raymond.

Thomas Hicken (the author's grandfather), was in his 50th year
when he decided to leave Heber, Utah and immigrate to Raymond.
Though he originally claimed it was land for his sons and himself
that motivated the move, family members have said differently.
"Father was never a farmer; he was a business man," said J.O.
Hicken, the author's dad. "He always had good jobs and was
relatively prosperous in Heber. He was the tax assessor and
collector for Wasatch County, and had been offered a partnership
in the Hatch Mercantile if he would stay. But, father was determined
to come north. regardless of the opportunities at home and in spite
of his age.

At pioneer farming in Alberta, father just didn't fit. He was like a
square peg in a round hole. He was too old for the heavy work,
and only one son of his 15 children ever became interested in the
land. Only in later years - after all but three of us had returned to
live in the United States - did we learn that father had been running
away from heavy memories. He had hoped that in Alberta there would
be something which would erase or suppress the feelings of personal
guilt and responsibility which he associated with the death of his first
wife. Land had only served as an excuse." Probably only a few of
those early settlers had deep drives of individualism equal to the
intensity of Charles Lamb's, or experiences which could parallel
the tragic events which the Waltons and Andersons had lived
through, or reasons for unrevealed depression like those that tore
at Thomas Hicken. But, nearly all who left records have indicated
some peculiar cause for discontentment or heartache which led them
to leave Utah and migrate to the Raymond area at the turn of the
century. Although these examples are limited, and can only serve
as partial indicators in relation to private motivation for the settling
of Raymond, they do provide evidence that individual reasons for
emigration often went far beyond economic stability in their
complexity.

Reality hits home

Optimism was the key word for the Raymond settlers during those
early years. Everything was new and opportunities seemed unlimited.
In advertising, the region was boasted as if it might have been a
segment of heaven. The area soon became known as "The Choicest
Spot, in the Best Mixed Farming District in the World" and "The
Home of Alberta's greatest industry - the Knight Sugar Factory"
and "The district where the rich have increased their wealth and
the poor have become independent. Regardless of the enthusiastic
wash of superlatives and the glowing terms used by the local
Board of Trade, conditions were not as assured, stable or lucrative
as advertised. The sugar factory which Knight built was never a
financial success and, one may speculate, had not really been built
as a commercial enterprise in the first place, but rather more for the
benefit of the settlers in the surrounding countryside.

From its inception, mountainous problems confronted the profitable
operation of the factory. With the first production came the first
competition, with the established sugar interests in Vancouver
slashing their prices, hoping to preserve their monopoly. And, the
price of sugar was only one problem. Even after a price stabilization
program had been instituted by the Dominion Government, the
operation still wasn't profitable. No amount of government support
could offset the other unfavorable situations, such as the inadequate
supply of beet labour and the general working conditions in the fields.
These problems simply hinged on the fact that growing beets was too
labour intensive to fit into the farming being favoured at that time.
The result, as William Knight observed, was "It seemed impossible
to get farmers to grow beets in sufficient quantity to make the
industry profitable." In this "Home of Opportunity" the settlers had
soon found it much easier and just as profitable to produce grain
and livestock as it was to toil in the back-breaking cultivation of
sugar beets. Besides, the growing demand for grain by the new urban
and industrial populations of Europe and the United States was
pushing grain prices too high to be ignored.

For the Knight sugar factory this atmosphere was crippling. When
farmers should have been expanding their beet acreages, they were
decreasing them, depending less on irrigatable crops like sugar
beets, and more on grains. In spite of this trend, the sugar factory
continued operations until 1914. However, it never had a sufficient
supply of beets to make it a financial success. As a result, in 1917,
the Raymond factory was dismantled and moved to Cornish, Utah.

There is no question that Raymond came into existence primarily
because of the philanthropic spirit of Jesse Knight. Unlike its sister
LDS communities of Cardston, Magrath and Stirling, Raymond had
no direct Church sponsorship. By early 1900, the LDS Church
seemed to have ended its active program of colonizing and
settling Southern Alberta. Though approached with further
proposals to settle more people, the Church showed no
active interest.

Return Cities, Towns, Villages and Hamlets of Southern Alberta