The McDougall Memorial United Church will be participating in Historic Calgary Week Sunday, Aug. 3, as volunteers will guide interpretive tours of the site from 1:30 – 4 p.m. telling the story of the history of the site that was once the centre of the Morleyville settlement.
According to the McDougall Stoney Mission Society’s (MSMS) website, the church was built in 1875 by Reverend George McDougall, who had long had the desire to open a mission among the Stoney Nakoda and Blackfoot people of Southern Alberta.
According to a document put together by the memorial foundation, the McDougall family arrived in Alberta in 1873, and by 1875, there were 23 residents of European descent in the area.
By 1881, 60 settlers were collecting their mail from the post office inside David McDougall’s trading post, while only 30 people were collecting mail in Fort Calgary at the time.
In 1891, 100 families totaling 388 people were listed as living at Morleyville.
In a historical account put together by the Municipal District of Bighorn, it stated that the mission consisted of a log church, a mission house, a school, an orphanage and a teacher’s residence.
The account also stated that the mission site spurred rapid settlement and commercial development by both native and non-native peoples. At its height in the 1880s, the Morleyville settlement had several ranching and farming operations, sawmills, trading posts, outfitting operations and a North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) office.
According to the Municipal District of Bighorn, the site is also valued as the oldest and only example of vernacular Gothic revival style building in the Bow River Region and is also valued as a rare and undisturbed oasis for native prairie grassland.
The McDougall Stoney Mission Society states on its website that they emerged from the initial rescue of the historical church in 1952 by several AOTS (As One That Services) clubs of Calgary United Churches and they were formally established as the MSMS in 1975. It lists its responsibilities as overseeing the restoration, preservation, interpretation and operations of the 43.9 acres of the land east of Morley.
The MD of Bighorn is currently seeking to designate the Morleyville Methodist Mission — which sits next to the McDougall Church — as the municipality’s first historic resource; the McDougall Church, the centerpiece of the Morleyville Mission, is a Provincial Heritage Resource, but does not take into account the entire site.
For more information visit mcdougallstoneymission.com.
