Prairie towns always come equipped with a rail line. If bypassed by railway builders, the town would move across the prairie citizens, houses, stores and all to have this crucial transportation link at its doorstep. The town was, above all, an agricultural service centre. Its function was to buy and ship the farmers' products, to sell them food, clothing and farm supplies and to provide the basic services health care, school, post office, clubs which would make their environment comfortable. This photograph shows the market square in Edmonton where an auction is taking place. It illustrates very well the function of the prairie town as the centre of information and commodity exchange.
A hierarchy of towns emerged soon after settlement began. One regional metropolis, Winnipeg, and four junior associates, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Calgary, became the centres of government, transportation, education and business. Next in the hierarchy, a number of cities, such as Brandon, Prince Albert and Lethbridge, became district leaders with regional administrative responsibilities for roads and courts and government services. On the next two levels were local service centres, some with extensive functions. Dauphin or Yorkton, for example, and others with a more limited role like Morden or Tisdale.
In each prairie province, several hundred additional centres of population were established. These hamlets and villages, which might have had fifty to two thousand residents, are now threatened with extinction because of rural depopulation and the centralization of administrative and social services. Not all will disappear, by any means, but all will face the same struggle.
