Uncovered these old photos while looking for something else.
The town of Kimball was located a mile or so south of the dam. The first settlers moved into the area in 1889 and in 1897 the community hosted a large influx of Mormon settlers from Utah who were hired by the Alberta Railway and irrigation Co (A.R. & I.) to build a cannel from Kimball through Spring Coulee and Magrath to Sterling and Lethbridge. Half the pay that they would receive would be in money and the other half in land.
For the railway this was an exercise in creative marketing. There was no need for a railway until the country was settled and no one wanted to settle in the area because it was considered too dry to produce consistent crops. The irrigation cannel was built in order to encourage settlers to move into the area.
The Kimball Dam was a wooden structure built to store the water required for the cannel and was located a few hundred yards south of the bridge over the St. Mary river on Highway 501.
Kimball became a thriving community with stores, a pool hall, dance hall, church, school, a coal mine... (click here to read the rest)