Senate, Saskatchewan
Senate is an unincorporated community within the Rural Municipality of Reno No. 51, Saskatchewan, Canada. The village had a population of 63 around 1940 and has since declined to 0 residents. The townsite is located along Highway 21 and Highway 13, about east of the Alberta–Saskatchewan border and is about south-west of the city of Swift Current.
History
Senate's population peaked at 63 in the 1940s and was a stopping point for the Canadian Pacific Railway. For a few years, Senate even had its own train ticket agent.The west had just been opened up to waves of European settlers seeking prosperity, and at first, the future appeared promising for Senate and several others along Highway 13.
During Senate's best years, the community had two elevators, a five-room hotel and restaurant, blacksmith shop, lumberyard and Kalmring's general store and gas station. For leisure, the citizens of Senate also built a tennis court and a baseball diamond across the train tracks.
But as in most other locales along southwest Saskatchewan, Senate's fortunes declined after the 1940s. Regional farm consolidation, drought and rural depopulation ended all hope for any lasting life at Senate.
By early 1983, the community was empty. In 1994, with the railway and elevators also gone, List of [rural municipalities in Saskatchewan|rural municipality] officials brought in the bulldozers and levelled Senate's remaining dilapidated buildings and dumped part of the debris into a nearby landfill.