After the provincial election in 1909, the Liberals of Alexander Cameron Rutherford headed into their second term with great enthusiasm. Premier Rutherford was intent on living up to his campaign promise of Rutherford, Reliability and Railroads. But as historian David Leonard explains, his reward was scandal:

In 1910, the Minister of Public Works abruptly resigned over the handling of the Alberta Great Waterways Railway. Extensive bond guarantees had been given to this company. And certain American speculators had grown wealthy by taking bonds issued by the provincial government, floating them on the London Stock Exchange at a certain rate, which is a little higher than what the provincial government had requested that they do. And these entrepreneurs from Kansas simply skimmed of the top of it and gave Alberta what it had initially requested. There?s nothing wrong with that. It?s just that it appeared that the government had been duped by these American speculators. And Rutherford thought it was his responsibility to resign, which he did in 1910, and was replaced by Arthur Sifton, who continued to run a fairly upscale government, still promoting railways and other developments. The scandal didn?t seem to hurt the government, and the new province of Alberta continued to boom.

Edmonton grew in the space of four years from 24 000 people to 63 000 people, while the population of Calgary doubled from forty to 80 000 people. And the skylines of these two large cities really did reflect the Edwardian industrial motif of most major North American cities. In the rural areas, the production of grain was at an all-time high. The hinterlands around the many rural villages and towns throughout the province were filling up with people at a massive level. There were over two million acres of land under cultivation at this time, producing over 1.2 million bushels of wheat. Western Canada has now really reached its peak in terms of grain production.

Settlement, commerce and the building of roads continued at a frantic pace. And the Liberals, now under the leadership of Arthur Sifton, faced the election of 1913 with confidence.

On the Heritage Trail, I?m Cheryl Croucher.