Atlas Lumber Yard & Office

Alberta’s population boom at the turn of the last century created an insatiable market for milled lumber. Large corporations, financed by groups of investors, recognized the lumber industry’s potential, and in 1901, an unidentified company appointed A.E. Bowers and John Fletcher to establish a lumber yard in Airdrie.

The lumber yard later became an outlet for Atlas Lumber Co., whose parent company was headquartered in Minneapolis. Atlas was a generous employer, giving turkeys to its married workers at Christmas, donating money to support Airdrie’s Sports Day and accepting grain in lieu of cash payments. In 1968, Brett Sine, owner of the Revelstoke Lumber Co., donated the Atlas shed and office to Heritage Park.