In this Then and Now we’re visiting the “almost” ghost town of Rowley Alberta. It’s a little north of Drumheller. Today, this dot-on-the-map community is home to a few people at most, but in the past was a more populace and much busier place. Many of the long vacant buildings are kept up and the town encourages you to stop by. Wander about and take in a little prairie history.
There’s an impressive row of grain elevators, plus various stores and businesses in “downtown”. Of note is Sam’s Saloon – come for pizza AND cheer. One Saturday every month, less one, they hold a fundraising night and people come from all around to partake in the event. Yummy eats, a little music, good times and the town is an amazing backdrop. You can spend the night camping here and all of it benefits Rowley.
Rowley Alberta early 1990s & 2025: the trains are gone now. Across time with Chris Doering & Connie Biggart (BIGDoer/Synd)
Thanks to “Dale” for sponsoring this and many other posts at BIGDoer.com. Be like Dale…
“Pizza Nite is a monthly fundraiser held in Rowley within the picnic table area to the east of the Community Hall and/or in Sam’s Saloon. We operate the last Saturday of every month, excluding December. The Rowley Community Hall Association (RCHA) hosts Pizza Nite to raise money for building maintenance, improvements and facility utilities.” – Rowley webpage.
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The subject for this comparison is the old Canadian National Railways train station down by the tracks. We’ll be looking at it, first in the early 1990s as a freight passes by and again more recently in 2025. While not much in the scene has changed, one important element has. The trains are long gone, with the last one visiting a few years after the first capture.
Back then, Rowley was a little-visited backwater, but today is an established ghost town destination.
The station building dates from 1922 and was not the first depot here. It replaced an earlier temporary one put in place around 1911. Said to be a converted boxcar, era photos show a more shed like structure.
Rowley dates to the early 1910s and as you’ve probably noted, founded concurrently with the coming of the railway. Canadian Northern Railways built the line under the Alberta Midland charter. In the early 1920s (so coincidently around the time they constructed this station) Canadian National Railways acquired Canadian Northern’s network of lines.
The building is a CNoR class three design suitable for modest sized villages, so like Rowley was at the time. Second class versions were for larger towns and fourth, for the tiniest communities. All versions we’re similar in design, but differed in size.
Class two and three types had living quarters upstairs for the station agent and their family. This person’s job was to sell tickets, manage parcel or less than carload express shipments, send telegrams, print money orders, inspect passing trains, and sometimes even arrange car shipments to local consignees. It could get busy.
Sometime after the 1950s, exact date unconfirmed, the railway eliminated the agent’s position in Rowley. Business levels had dropped and this person was no longer needed. Train crew themselves would handle paperwork for tickets and a local business, acting on the railway’s behalf, would take care of express shipments.
The line here continued to see passenger trains all the way into the early 1980s. For the last few years the run was under the auspices of Via Rail Canada, which in the 1970s took over the passenger businesses of both the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific nationally. For the last decade or two of service, passenger trains comprised a single self propelled rail car.
By this point the station was little used. Rowley was pretty much a ghost town by the 1970s and the train didn’t stop often. Passengers used the station platform of the otherwise locked up building.
They could have torn down the station around this time, but thankfully didn’t. Was it that passenger run that saved it, or just a general lack of interest by the railway in spending the cash to demolish the building? Regardless, it managed to survive.
Even with the end of passenger service, the building, at various times, at least based on one report, functioned as storage (track materials mentioned). The CNR sold the line through Rowley in the mid-1980s. The new operator was the Central Western Railway and they operated out of Stettler to the north.
Even they could not make a go of it and the last freights to pass through town were later in the 1990s, so not terribly long after the “then” image capture.
From the late 1980s to about 1997, tourist trains from Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions visited Rowley. The station fit in perfectly. Sometimes a steam engine pulled these trains, but other times a vintage diesel did the job. Once that service ended, they pulled up the rails, although a section in front of the station and nearby grain elevators was purposely left behind. For appearances.
Fast forward to today and the Rowley Station is a display. They fixed it up to look as it did when built and sometimes it’s open for you to view. It wears traditional CNoR cream colours and looks much as it did back in the day. A speeder sits on the track out front, but it’s got nowhere to go.
Along the remains of the same railway line (last known as the CNR’s/CWR’s Stettler Subdivision) are a few other former CNoR stations that managed to survive. There’s one in nearby Big Valley – still used by those tourist trains spoken of earlier – and further north in a community called Meeting Creek. We know both pretty well and there’s another in nearby Camrose too.
The then photo is thanks to reader Bill Hooper, a long time railway photographer and train buff (thanks Bill). It shows a passing grain local pulled by a couple Central Western 1950s vintage General Motors locomotives. They’re bringing in some hoppers, perhaps for grain loading in Rowley or elsewhere on the line.
Beside the obvious, the scene here shows little change from then to now. The station is much as it was, although repainted. The trees sure have grown up. The stop sign and crossbuck, protecting the road crossing from trains that will never come, appears to have been placed after the then image was captured.
That boxcar on the right held materials for the local museum then and perhaps still does. The lettering on its side reads “Yesteryear Artifacts Museum 1983”.
Note the people milling about at the station in our photo and what you don’t see is the action going on off camera to the right. Pizza Night was in full swing and the town was rocking. We wandered about Rowley and enjoyed the ambiance. This is Rowley at its busiest, but other times we stopped in and had it to ourselves.
If you have an old photo you think would make a good BIGDoer.com Then and Now, please contact us. It can show an old street view, vintage buildings or like the one Bill sent, a train scene from the past. We’ll revisit the location, shoot a similarly composed image and then talk about it all on this website. Photos can be scans or original (we’ll send them back), but must be your copyright.
We’ve stopped in Rowley countless times and that includes on many on Pizza Nights. It’s wildly fun and entertaining time, with a frontier vibe. For your enjoyment we’ve included a few images from these visits.
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Date of adventure: Early 1990s (Bill) and September 2025 (us). Location: Rowley, Alberta. Article references and thanks: Bill Hooper, UofC Photo Archives, the book Pioneer Days – Scollard, Rumsey, Rowley and Canadian Trackside Guides.
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