Moose Jaw's CPR gardens impressed train travellers

A recent issue of Canadian Rail, the voice of the Canadian Railroad Historical Association, has a lot to say about railway gardens, especially the Canadian Pacific Railway gardens at Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat. Station gardens first appeared in Great Britain about the same time as the railroad network did. According to Canadian Rail: "The familiar sight of blooming flowers and shrubs placed the new technology which many people found frightening within the soothing context of nature and domesticity." When the Grand Trunk Railway came to Canada in the 1850s, it not only brought British technology and financing but also station gardens. By the 1860s, there was mention of railway gardens at the Guelph, Ont., depot and "other lovely gardens along the central division of the Grand Trunk Railway." Employees paid for the plants and the company supplied the fencing and prepared the soil. There were other reasons why railways developed station gardens. Gardens revealed the soil's fertility, and settlers believe that if the land surrounding the railway station was productive, then it must be the same all over. And, according to Canadian Rail, "the gardens were used to encourage morality. Drunkenness was the scourge of the 19th century and inebriated employees threatened the safety of railway operations. Gardens filled the spare time of the railroad workers and kept them away from the saloons which were always handily located near the station." The first CPR garden on the Prairies was started at Medicine Hat around 1888 and was the pride and joy of the CPR's Assistant Superintendent Niblock. The garden encompassed flower beds, vegetable patches, lawns, sheltering trees and shubbery, and even a small zoo featuring animals indigenous to the area. Niblock's idea quickly took hold. Sir William Van Horne, president of the CPR, encouraged the garden concept and soon there were gardens at major stations and divisional points westward from Lake Superior. In mid-July 1890, the Moose Jaw Times reported: "The officials of the CPR certainly deserve great credit for the fine appearance of the flower and vegetable gardens at Moose Jaw . . . The garden contains about two acres of the CPR reserve along the track, and was plowed from the unbroken prairie this spring . . . The result of this experiment has been highly satisfactory, and will be of great service to farmers and others in deciding what class of trees are the most suitable for the district. Out of 300 trees planted, not more than half a dozen have failed to grow." "Two men are engaged the whole time in looking after the garden," recorded the Times, "and it is needless to say that everything is well looked after. Travellers along the line say that the Moose Jaw garden is the best west of Winnipeg." On July 24, 1881, the Moose Jaw Times reported: "thorough cultivation and manuring has produced a result that we firmly believe is not excelled or even equalled west of Lake Superior. If any person has the slightest doubt of the adaptability of the Moose Jaw soil for the production of all kinds of vegetables of the highest quality, he has only to pay a visit to the CPR gardens to have all doubts removed." The Times continued its report on the CPR gardens: "The garden suffered considerably in the spring from the ravages of the destructive cutworm, but through the vigilance of the gardener Mr. E. Tapley, the young plants were saved from the marauder." During the 1892 growing season, the CPR enlarged its garden at Moose Jaw from three to seven acres and planted in the enlarged space between 3,000 and 4,000 trees including 1,200 Balm of Gileads (a species of poplar) and 1,000 maples. "It is the intention of the CPR," informed the Times, "to make the gardens at Moose Jaw a point from which to supply gardens at other points on the line." According to Canadian Rail, "The infatuation with station gardens began to fade in the 1950s, when automobiles and airplanes replaced train travel. The West was now settled and promoting fertile land was no longer a priority. Passenger travel by train was falling off . . . and railways could no longer afford the luxury of civic beautification projects." Although the CPR gardens at Moose Jaw have been replaced by parking lots, shops and businesses, the station itself, now a liquor store, is a prime example of adapted reuse of a building which has outlived its original purpose.