Senate, Saskatchewan

For other uses, see Senate.

Senate, Saskatchewan
Unincorporated community
Location of Senate in Saskatchewan
Coordinates:
Country	Canada
Province	Saskatchewan
Region	Southwest Saskatchewan
Census division	4
Rural Municipality	Reno
Established	1910
Village established	1914-1994
Dissolved	January 1, 1994
Government
• Administrator	Lacelle Kim
• Governing body	Reno No. 51
Population (1940)
• Total	63
Time zone	CST
Postal code	S0N 2G0
Area code(s)	306
Highways	Highway 13
Railways	Great Western Railway

Senate is an unincorporated community in Reno Rural Municipality No. 51, Saskatchewan, Canada. The village had a population of 63 around 1940. If The townsite is located on highway 21 & highway 13 also known as the historic Red Coat Trail, about 20 km east of the Alberta-Saskatchewan border and is about 200 km southwest of Swift Current, Canada.

Demographics

Prior to January 1, 1994, Senate was incorporated as a village, and was dissolved into an unincorporated community under the jurisdiction of the Rural municipality of Reno on that date.

History

Paul Kalmring's family ran a corner store and gas station for most of the time between 1916 to 1983 in the tiny community, named after federal senators of the day when the community was created in 1914. Kalmring's family moved to the area when Paul was two, and his father soon purchased a convenience store and gas station.

Senate's population peaked at 63 in the 1940s and was a stopping point for the Canadian Pacific Railway. For a few years, Senate even had its own train ticket agent.

The west had just been opened up to waves of European settlers seeking prosperity, and at first, the future appeared promising for Senate and several others along Highway 13, or what is now know today as the Red Coat Trail.

During Senate's best years, the community boasted two elevators, a five-room hotel and restaurant, blacksmith shop, lumberyard and Kalmring's general store and gas station. For leisure, the citizens of Senate also built a tennis court and a baseball diamond across the train tracks.

But as in most other locales along southwest Saskatchewan, Senate's fortunes declined after the 1940s. Regional farm consolidation, drought and rural depopulation ended all hope for any lasting life at Senate.

By the early 1980s, Kalmring sold his store and moved to his farm, three kilometres north of Senate. And in 1983, the community was empty, home only to prairie ghosts. In 1994, with the railway and elevators also gone, rural municipality officials brought in the bulldozers and levelled Senate's remaining dilapidated buildings and dumped part of the debris into a nearby landfill.

Geography

Most cities in Canada and throughout the world have their antipode in the ocean. In the 1940s, Senate was one of only a handful of communities in Canada that has not only land, but a similar size village, in this case Port aux Francais on the Kerguelen Islands, within 10 km of its antipode.

See also

• List of communities in Saskatchewan
• List of ghost towns in Canada
• Ghost towns in Saskatchewan