A Syndicate To Bring In New Immigrants To Vermilion

Way back in 1910, Vermilion was about five years old and quickly growing. All around the area, people were taking up homesteads to capitalize on the fantastic land.

To help get people settled in the area, various syndicates were formed. These companies provided people with guidance to build their homesteads. They sold the goods that were needed, directed the settlers to where they needed to go and helped with all the organizing.

In January 1910, it was announced that the Belgian Land Syndicate that controlled 50,000 acres of land in the area, had sold their holdings to several English capitalists.

The plan for the capitalists was to create a colony of experienced English and Scottish farmers on the land.

It was not hard to see why the Vermilion area was proving to be so popular at the time.

Since Americans had been buying up the land in southern Alberta, there was a greater demand for the land in central Alberta. Hundreds of settlers were pouring into the area and Vermilion was a popular stopping point.

The Vancouver Province wrote about the community,

“The town of Vermilion, which bids fair to become a thriving city at no distant date, is the marketing centre of this famous district. The growth of towns in the west the next few years will astonish the pessimist who will look back and say I did not think they would amount to anything.”

Many expected that Vermilion would become a great railroad centre. Just in the past few years, it had grown at an exponential rate, and also built a $40,000 public school.

It was clear why the British capitalists had bought up that land and were encouraging people to move to the area to begin their homestead.

Many of those British and Scottish settlers became important parts of the local community, helping Vermilion grow in the coming decades.

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