per acre was also granted by the government. The church-sponsored immigrants, to whom Galt advanced the costs of transportation, were to establish themselves in hamlet, one each in the tracts twenty and thirty miles south of Lethbridge, the communities of Stirling & Magrath, Alberta were established in 1889 as per contract with AR&IC. The main canal was completed in August 1900. That same year the St. Mary’s River Railway Company was incorporated to provide access and serve the settlers benefiting from the irrigation system. It reached Cardston in 1903, with permission to extend the narrow gauge line. At Raymond, Alberta a sugar beet factory was erected. A further consolidation of land took place in 1900, followed in 1902 by the purchase of the adjacent 500,000 Acre Tract at one dollar an acre after the awarding of credits amounting to two dollars an acre. Payment was to be made in ten equal annual installments. The stipulation was that the land could not be sold for more than five dollars an acre, and the unsold balance, after 15 years, would revert to the government. In 1904 the Galt companies were merged into a new corporation, the Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company (AR&IC). The St. Mary's Canal was enlarged and a beginning was made on a canal from the Milk River, halted by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 between the United States and Canada, dividing the waters of the two rivers equally between the two countries. In 1912 the Canadian Pacific Railway leased the AR&IC for 999 years thus ending the independence of the Galt enterprise. See also Galt Historic Railway Park - Stirling, Alberta References External links Virtual Field Trip for the Oldman River Description of Galt Railway Coal companies of Canada Companies based in Lethbridge History of Lethbridge 3 ft gauge railways in Canada Energy companies established in 1882 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1882 Defunct Alberta railways