Lanigan

Town, pop 1,289, located W of Big Quill Lake, and S of Humboldt, on Hwys 16 and 20. Lanigan developed with the arrival of the CPR in 1907. The small cluster of shacks which sprang up on the townsite quickly gave way to more substantial structures, and Lanigan was incorporated as a village on August 21, 1907. On April 15, 1908, the community attained town status, and by the end of the decade rail lines connected it to Saskatoon to the west and Wynyard to the east. By the end of the 1920s, rail lines were spreading in five directions as tracks had been completed to the northeast through Watson to Melfort, and north through Humboldt to Prince Albert. As a service and distribution centre for the surrounding agricultural district, Lanigan’s population had grown to just over 500 by the early 1960s. In the mid-1960s, it received a substantial boost as the Alwinsal Corporation established a potash mine 11 km west of the community. The potash mine, which was purchased by the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan in 1977, today employs approximately 325 people. Agriculture remains the other component in the area economy, and an integrated feedlot and ethanol plant is located 8 km east of the town. The feedlot has the capacity to hold close to 30,000 head of cattle, and the ethanol plant produces over 10 million litres of ethanol each year; the operation has about 50 full-time employees. Lanigan’s museum is situated in the town’s 1908 CPR station, one of only a handful of its type left standing in Saskatchewan.

David McLennan