Ogema's first settlers arrived in 1908, most of them from Bruce and Huron counties in Ontario, with a few from the United States, Europe and the British Isles. The men went ahead to get the homesteads ready before their families followed. The community was first going to be called Omega, Greek for "end," because it sat at the end of the railway. Authorities said another town already had that name, so two letters were switched and Ogema, an Ojibwe word meaning "Chief," was born. The post office opened under that name in 1911, and the Canadian Pacific Railway sold the town lots.
The village was declared in February 1911, and the CPR line between Weyburn and Assiniboia reached it that August. A telegraph line and the first curling rink followed in 1912, and by December of that year, with 500 residents, Ogema became a town. A fire in January 1915 destroyed nine businesses on Main Street, which led to the building of the Fire Hall and a tall brick fire wall. The 1920s brought a boom, with a high in wheat production in 1928, before drought, dust storms and grasshoppers of the Dirty Thirties drove many families away.
Today Ogema is proud of its heritage. The Deep South Pioneer Museum, organized in 1977 and opened in 1980, holds more than 30 restored buildings and a large collection of farm equipment. The restored 1912-style CPR station, opened in 2009, is a stop for Southern Prairie Railway tours. The Heritage Grandstand, built in the 1920s, hosts the Agricultural Society Fair Day, the longest running agricultural fair in Saskatchewan. The 1925 British American Gas Station is also a heritage property.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Ogema, Saskatchewan” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.