Small wooden stations were erected for the convenience
of passengers on the first Crow's Nest Railway built in
1897-1898. St. Mary's was a station with watertank on the
Crow's Nest Pass line and was located at the east end of
the bridge crossing the St. Mary River, west of the airport.
Whoop-Up was another station on the line, and was located
immediately south of what eventually became the George
Luco Farmstead (8-8-21-4).

Four Mile Crossing was used by CPR train crews to refer to
the place where the Coutts highway crossed the railway track.
It was about 4 miles from the railway yards. Blacksmith
Crossing referred to a road crossing over the Coutts' railway
about 7 miles southeast of the Lethbridge yards, where a
blacksmith had a small shop in the 1920's and 1930's. His
business was mostly shoeing horses, then the main motive
power on farms in the region. (This north-south road is
sometimes called 'the Broxburn road, even though Broxburn
was situated on the Coaldale railway line.)

Whitney Crossing was named after Wm. D. Whitney, who ran
cattle in the vicinity around the turn of the century. Earlier,
the property was owned by George W. Houk. Later, (1986),
it was the site of a wooden bridge over the St. Mary River,
put in place in the 1950's to provide access to the Big Lease
on the Blood Reserve.

Miscellaneous Histories