I.G. Baker & Co.

History

In 1874, the North West Mounted Police arrived half-starved and exhausted in the Sweetgrass Hills after their historic march west from Winnipeg. The officers in charge trekked to Fort Benton, Montana, to secure supplies, where they met Charles E. Conrad of I.G. Baker & Company.

Before long, the I.G. Baker Company was the official supplier of the NWMP, and built the Mounties’ fort, which would soon be named Fort Macleod, on a small island on the Oldman River. The I.G. Baker Company built a store nearby, and soon the company’s bull trains were ferrying supplies to this store and others in Calgary and Lethbridge. The Baker building developed into the centre of community activity in Fort Macleod, and was later sold, along with the rest of Baker’s Canadian stores, to the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1891. A replica of the store was built in Heritage Park, and the exhibit opened in 1990.