Founded c. 1870 | ||
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Weather 3°C, Wind W at 13 km/h, 86% Humidity | ||
Tail Creek Town was a Metis settlement that existed from circa 1870 to 1878.
The settlement was founded by metis who fled Manitoba around the late 1860s. The town was composed of roughly 400 one-room hovels laid out in a haphazard fashion. From early autumn to late spring the town hosted close to 1000 people. For a time, it was the largest community between St. Boniface and the Pacific.
The town was built in and around the Y where Tail Creek (a tributary of Buffalo Lake) joins the Red Deer River, west of Red Deer, Alberta.
The town met and welcomed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in January 1875, including Sam Steele, who later placed a four-man detachment in the town.
The town was wiped out by a prairie fire in 1878. It was not rebuilt, due to the extermination of the buffalo herds.
One cabin survived and is preserved in Stettler. The cemetery still exists.