Bruderheim
As the days and now weeks go by quickly into October and the weather is still holding at sunny and warm, Terry is wont to golf when he can.
So I stole a day for myself with him and we decided it would be a road trip to the small, country town of Bruderheim.
According to “Wikipedia” The town's name is derived from two German words: "Bruder" meaning brother and the suffix "-heim" meaning home. In English, it translates to "Home of the Brother".
I tried to research why the town had this name and my guess is it had to do with The Krause Mill which was built in 1907 by the three Krause brothers, Adam, William and Theodor.
The flour mill commenced operation in 1908, but that fall, an early frost badly froze the wheat, resulting in poor quality flour and complaints from customers. The next year crops were good and so was business – the mill operated day and night. Farmers brought their wheat from miles around with sleighs and teams of horses. The entire village prospered. In 1915 an elevator was built, increasing the mill’s capacity to 30,000 bushels. That same year the Krause Mill changed its name to Bruderheim Milling Company.
(The mill was destroyed by fire in 1927, resulting in a great loss to the village.)
We chose Bruderheim because Terry had had a meeting there with one of the boards that he sits on and at break time he took himself over to Lily’s Restaurant in town. He said his lunch was really good and if we ever wanted to make that our destination sometime he thought I would really enjoy it. I DID!
The downtown of Bruderheim looks typically tiny, some buildings boarded up, and most look pretty dingy as per street appeal.
That’s why I was pretty surprised when we walked inside and the place was modern and immaculate!
We saved up our calories for a ‘bread-y” lunch and I could only eat half of my large, freshly made and delicious sandwich. Even the bathrooms were perfectly clean and the place had a steady flow of patrons.
I took a photo of the old Victoria hotel but I found an even older photo of the hotel online.
The Victoria Hotel, built by the Krause family in 1906, has had a colorful past and has changed hands numerous times. It has been renovated throughout the years but still stands today as a landmark on Queen Street.
During the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919, the hotel was turned into a temporary hospital. Several bachelors were living there and most remained in the hospital as patients. The most common symptoms of the flu were a stinging throat, fever, and in severe cases bleeding from either the nose or mouth; eleven deaths were recorded. The village was quarantined for a period of three weeks and the road entrances were roped off – police supplied the village with medicine and thermometers.
Hmmmm. Seems that pandemics have always been with us. A few more facts I uncovered:
Erected in 1923, a cheese factory was the mainstay of the district farmers as well as farming.
The Mallon Windmill, built in 1920 by Mr. William Mallon, was a wind-driven mill used to grind rye and wheat into flour and animal feed, and to saw firewood.
As early as 1910, Bruderheim was able to boast its own group of musicians who formed a band with a common purpose in mind – they loved music.
The Bruderheim area was the recipient of a notable meteorite fall on March 4, 1960—the Bruderheim meteorite! When we saw that the town mentioned this on their main sign we knew we had to check this thing out!
Unfortunately, it was in the firestation and the guys in there were having a meeting so I could only take a photo from the doorway.
I loved that we even saw an old car and truck in this old town!
We said good-bye to the aliens and stopped to photograph some interesting old barns and an old house on the way home.
What a gorgeous fall we’re blessed with and I’m so happy we got to find out a little bit about the town of Bruderheim, Alberta!