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Wardill's memories that evening have always remained clear, taking careful note of Estuary's obvious decay - empty homes and buildings, three pitiful street lamps and a sense of loss and abandonment as far as the eyes could stretch across the vast prairie expanses.
More than five decades later, little has changed, except the abandonment is more complete. A few homes are still visible. But the street lamps are gone.
Wardill's passion for Estuary remains. He is still married to the girl he knew half a century ago, but since those first visits, he has made it a mission to know more about Estuary. Maybe too much.
For many years, he has scoured provincial and municipal archives in his quest to bring back the heartbeat of Estuary. Wardill, who lives an hour's drive away in Eatonia, still visits the graveyard at Cemetery Hill, above the now abandoned townsite and overlooking the South Saskatchewan River. A passionate believer in divining, he has mapped out and discovered scores of graves in the derelict cemetery.
His decades-long quest result in the 1996 publication of the book, "Sand Castles", a history of the remarkably short and tragic lifespan of Estuary, which in many respects is similar to the story of Alderson, an early 20th century town in the dry belt of southern Alberta.
Without this dedicated passion, it's doubtful any meaningful record of Estuary, or the cemetery would exist today.
"This is a God-forsaken place," declared Wardill during a visit to the town and Cemetery Hill in the summer of 2001. "They were betrayed."
From its very beginning, Estuary was a railway town. It's hope and dreams rested with the railway's bold ambitious plans to expand west, bringing with it the surging tide of pioneer landseekers.
The first development plan for the townsite was registered on April 19, 1914. The Canadian Pacific Railway was coming through and so were the hungry and hopeful, carting with them dreams of prosperity in this vast new land.
The First World War had started but for a few short years, it was a time of spectacular growth for Estuary. The town's population swelled to 800.
Although detailed records during the war years are sketchy, Wardill's research shows that Estuary had at least 163 businesses from 1914 to 1954, including a weekly newspaper, six blacksmith shops, 10 livery barns, six rooming houses, six hardware stores, 10 cafes or restaurants, 13 various service stations, 23 grocery stores and one department store. There were of course an assortment of doctors, dentists, schools and churches either in the town or nearby. At its peak, Estuary had seven grain elevators. Most of the businesses were in operation before 1921.
Estuary had an active village council. The most noteworthy member was Oswald Schneider, who owned a livery, feed barn, a rooming house, a power plant and the Sunset Theatre, built in 1917 at a cost of $20,000 and considered the most elegant commercial building in Estuary.
He had a wife named Mary and nine children. Oswald Schneider was also a transvestite, which he flaunted, especially in his later years in the village.
Wardill's book details Schneider's battles with the community. By the early 1920s, he was booted off village council over the operation of his power plant, and his business empire was by then collapsing. After 1930, his wife and children were gone, replaced by a Mrs. Bailey who moved in with Schneider along with her two children.
In "Sand Castles", Wardill details a story from two residents who lived in the nearby town of Empress and who were frequent visitors to the bizarre household: "The woman remembers that Mrs. Bailey used to call Schneider "Oswood" and that she took great pleasure in helping him transform his masculine appearance. She applied the depilatories to his face, selected outfits from his expensive wardrobe, and was also his photographer. Some of the modeling sessions lasted for hours. The man remembers Oswald was of medium height and rather stocky. His dresses were a poor fit for Bailey, but she often appropriated one to wear to a dance."
Schneider left Estuary in 1938. Today, his last home remains, and in 2001, it was bought and renovated by new owners.
Long before Schneider left, ghosts had already moved into Estuary. Several fires, especially devastating ones in 1917 and 1923, crippled the town. The fire of 1917 destroyed 18 properties.
There were also several more blazes, not as destructive, but just as mysterious. In fact, arson has long been suspected. There was one minor arrest for attempted arson, but the cause of the major blazes has never been solved. With Estuary's fortunes in serious decline after the First World War, rumours were rampant that the fires were deliberately set to collect insurance.
Following the war, the town was delivered a different type of blow. Canadian Pacific Railway decided in 1919 to go ahead with plans to build branch line from nearby Leader to the new townsite of Burstall. The plan was a disaster for Estuary, as it would mean a reduction in the flow of grain coming into town. Instead, the grain moved to easier delivery points south of Estuary. Citizens felt betrayed by the rail company and began moving out in droves, taking everything with them, including their houses and businesses.
Estuary lost its village status in 1930. Over a few short years, the town became more and more a ghost town. The fuel dealership shut down in 1951. The community store closed in 1966, the railway station hauled away in 1970, and the last three grain elevators dismantled in 1982.
Today, one or two houses remain. But Estuary as a town is long gone. The blazing hot summers bearing down on the semi-desert terrain underscores the hardship dealt to the early pioneers. The haunting sense of barren abandonment can be seen and felt from all directions.
In September, 1993, while visiting Estuary, William Wardill noted there was little of anything left to remind visitors that the town once held great promise. He said the cemetery throbbed with loneliness and sorrow:
"This is where the sense of betrayal is the strongest. I touch the wind-scoured wood of a teetering fence which encloses a small grave. The fence has a gate with a rusty padlock. I wonder when that gate was opened last. I wonder who left a few bright flowers on the little grave, and then locked the gate and went away.
"And never came back."
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