The Gladmar area was settled around the turn of the 20th century, when many Norwegians moved into Saskatchewan from older settlements in the northern United States. The original village was founded a few miles north of its present site in 1909. J.E. Black, one of the early settlers, named it Gladmar after his son Gladstone and his daughter Margaret.
Coal shaped the early years. In 1910 the Eidness Brothers took a coal lease from the government, and the first coal from Gladmar Mine came out that year on a stone-boat pulled by oxen. Mrs. J.E. Black became the first postmaster in 1911, and the first mail arrived on skis, carried by Lars Lunde from a small school halfway to Radville. The Eidness brothers built the first general store in 1912, and the first church service was held in a new little building that August. That same year the settlers began organizing a rural municipality and school district, which led to the RM of Surprise Valley No. 9.
Violet Hammond taught at the first school, the one-room Ryeburn Valley school, in 1913. The first burial in the community-run cemetery took place in 1916, and Gladmar Hall went up in 1922 for community gatherings. The Canadian Pacific Railway reached Lake Alma in 1926 and Minton in 1929, and Olaf Eidness loaded Gladmar's first car of wheat. Grain elevators followed in 1929 and 1930. A hospital opened in 1944, and a new school was built in town in 1948.
Today farms and ranches provide most of the local work, and Gladmar Regional School serves students from preschool to Grade 12. Oil and trucking operations serve the surrounding region.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Gladmar” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.