archaeological surveys, a replica was built on the site in 1980. It operates as a museum and friendship centre. In 1898, when the Chalmers, or Klondike Trail was cut through the Swan Hills, northwest of Fort Assiniboine to Lesser Slave Lake, the location again became a stopping point, with gold seekers crossing the river with a self-service ferry on their overland trek to the Yukon. The earliest homesteads in the area were filed in 1906 in the Holmes Crossing district (named for the ferryman William B. Holmes), across the Athabasca and downriver from Fort Assiniboine. Most came via Edmonton, by way of the Hudson's Bay Pack Trail, which had been widened by then to accommodate wagons and sleighs. The graded road only went to about west of Morinville. By 1908 settlers crossed on the ferry and took up land north of the Athabasca River, including around the site of the old fort. The Fort Assiniboine post office was set up in 1910, operated, as was the practice, from a local homestead. Joseph Brewster was the first postmaster. A blacksmith's shop, and a store were soon built near the fort site. In 1914, the railway was built to Westlock, shortening the route on the trail significantly. The first community hall was built in 1916. By 1919, the road was graded to Holmes Crossing. The next year, on the north side of the river, a road was graded from the ferry landing, to a bridge on the Freeman River west of Fort Assiniboine. In 1922, the post office was moved to the settlement. The quarter-section of land on which the trading post had been situated had been homesteaded by a Dr. E.J. State in 1913. When he died in 1923, his property was willed to the University of Alberta, who surveyed and sold the lots, expanding the hamlet. In 1927 the railroad was built to Barrhead, only away. In 1934 the provincial government set up a public nursing service in the hamlet, which operated until 1969. The surrounding schools were centralized to Fort Assiniboine in 1946, and in the same year a charter was issued for a Fort Assiniboine Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. A United Church and a Roman Catholic Church were built in 1948 and 1949. The curling club was formed and a rink built in 1953. In 1956 a bridge was built over the Athabasca River, putting the