Immigration: Fly By Night

Suburban Railway Dept: The birth of Forest Lawn, that hard-scrabbled little hamlet-turned-village-turned-town just east of Calgary, has long been distinguished by the story of its controversial birth. But while it's a great tale, says Brenda Cosens, it's a bit of a tall one, according to Calgary Herald. "They never fled town, either," says Cosens, who works as a marketing and special events assistant at the International Avenue Business Revitalization Zone, which represents Forest Lawn business interests. "McCullough stayed in Chestermere for the rest of his life, and successive generations of his family have been active in the business and political life of this city." It was a pioneer prairie swindle worthy of a Hollywood film script: two unscrupulous real estate speculators, Americans no less, preying on the hopes and dreams of new Canadians. For $300 a lot -- a highly inflated price back in the 1900s -- the newcomers could buy into a grand new development that would boast parks, gardens and a rail link to Calgary. But the dream, as the story goes, turned into a nightmare for the buyers, a windfall for those fly-by-night con men, who quickly flew the coop with their ill-gotten gains. The promise of a rail link that never materialized, says Cosens, a lifelong resident of the community, wasn't just smoke and mirrors: James McCullough and his business partner, Albert Smyth, were doing their level best to bring the Chestermere-Calgary Suburban Railway Co. to fruition, laying the start of the rail's tracks and making several pitches to the government for the go-ahead. As reported in the news.
@t albert smyth, estate speculators