Millarville District

Millarville is situated on land originally settled by Robert Turner in 1886. Turner and his brother James ranched mose of the land in the area and grazed their cattle along the valley that runs south from here to the Sheep River and which came to bear their name.

The town is actually named after Malcolm Millar, an early resident who emigrated from Scotland in 1879. Millar served with the North West Mounted Police in the 1880s and settled in the area in 1886 along with the Turners. In 1892 he ran the locality's first post office and store from his ranch house that lay north-east of the present townsite.

Millar's store also served as a trading post for the local Stoney Indians who exchanged furs and skins for trade goods, and the ranch became a popular stopping place for travelers on the Fort Macleod-Calgary Trail. In 1889 a Mounted Police detachment was stationed at the Millar ranch to combat rustling and horse theft and the ever-present illicit stills.

Late in the 1930s, after the Turner Valley oil field had become a major petroleum producer, oil was discovered in the Millarville area and the settlement grew considerably. The most significant find was Home Oil's “Home Millarville No. 2” brought in on January 8, 1939 at 8,495 feet. By February 1943, it had become the first well in Canada to produce one million barrels of oil and eventually became one of Canada's largest producers. During this oil boom, Millarville contained two stores, two garages, two lumber yards, a machine shop and a restaurant which was eventually moved to Turner Valley becoming Wray/McRae Insurance then Route 40 Soup Co. Millarville also had about twenty-five houses, many of which were situated near the well sites owing to bad roads. When the oil boom declined in the early 1950s, most of the oil workers vanished, along with their dwellings.

Yet Millarville has remained as active community with a store, garage, community hall, post office, school and a few homes. Here too are the Millarville Race Track, a reminder of an earlier age in western Canadian society, and the historic Anglican Christ Church, with a century of active service to the Christian community