The Promise Becomes a Reality

Finally, in the fall of 1908, the first train pulled in to town. Before long regular passenger, freight and mail service was scheduled.
 

Rivers in about 1908

The GTP specifically dictated some elements of town design. Street were to be twenty metres wide. Prime locations were reserved for banks and hotels.

Because the new town was in the midst of well populated and productive farmland there was a burst of construction as commercial enterprises sprang up to meet the growing needs. The usual banks, general stores, drug and jewelry stores appeared. Some of these would naturally be housed in quickly erected-frame buildings, but because the economic importance of the town seemed quite secure many substantial commercial and residential building appeared in those first years. Some of those, like the original Grand Trunk Station and the Alexandra Hotel have been lost, but other such as the Imperial Bank of Commerce, Knox Presbyterian Church, and the fine houses beside it remain in use today.
 

Looking west on Second Avenue – in about 1910

While the Grand Trunk Pacific may not have been successful as a National enterprise, locally it was an important stimulus to the economy, a convenience to the citizens, and an influential factor in the lifestyle of the region. The Town of Rivers owes not only its very existence to the railway, and great deal of its character and success came directly down those rails.