Settlers began arriving in the Spiritwood district around 1911 and 1912, and the first of them mostly took up ranching. Growth stayed slow for years. A post office opened in 1923, named after Spiritwood Lake, North Dakota, the hometown of the first postmaster, Rupert J. Dumond.
Everything picked up when the railway came through in the late 1920s. Settlers of many different backgrounds poured into the district, and a good number of businesses were established. Spiritwood was incorporated as a village on October 1, 1935, and became a town on September 1, 1965.
Today Spiritwood serves as the main supply, service and administrative centre for the surrounding region, including several nearby First Nation reserves. Mixed farming, mostly grain, is the backbone of the local economy, and a company specializing in pig genetics is based in town. The railway and grain elevators are gone now, but the Spiritwood Museum keeps the community's story, including a display of restored antique tractors, and SpiritFest is held each August.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Spiritwood” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.