FENN: A TOWNSITE FLOP | Mileage 64.3 CNR Stettler Subdivision
The sale of lots in the Fenn townsite, announced with such fanfare in 1910 was a decided flop. The townsite, surveyed on a rise west of the tracks, was simply too close to Stettler (13 miles) and Big Valley (7 miles) to develop into anything more than a local station and grain delivery point. With little interest, the townsite never materialized and most of the land reverted to agricultural use. Subsequently a portion of the townsite area was subdivided into two small parcels with an access road to the road allowance to the north.
At Fenn, about 1912 rose a substantial general store, eventually incorporating the post office. Other than a small residence, and a service station just north of the general store there was little other development at Fenn. The business track east of the main line served two grain elevators, a grain loading platform, and a stock yard.
Fenn elevators.
In 1916, a standard Freight and Passenger shelter was erected on the west side of the main track. Facilities for the local sectionmen included a former car body converted into a bunkhouse (1918), a tool house, and a standard bunkhouse brought from Delia, Alberta in 1926 for the section foreman. These section buildings were removed in 1937 indicating that the Fenn section was abolished about this time.
Fenn Station, © CNoS Archives
Fenn Depot, 2015. ©S.I. Smith Photo
The Fenn freight and passenger shelter was sold in 1963 and relocated west of the station grounds behind the General Store. The General Store building – now a private residence, the shelter, and the early service station are still extant on the west side of the tracks.
In 1990 the Fenn business track became the site of a railway gravel loading operation. Gravel was imported from a nearby rock pit by truck and was loaded onto open top hopper cars for delivery to the Canadian Pacific at Stettler, and for use by the Central Western Railway. Today, the site remains a gravel pit and material storage location for Alberta Prairie Railway.