If you’ve never heard of Maybutt, Alta., you’re probably not the only one.
It was a once-promising town developed one kilometre north of Stirling in the early 1900s by investors from Ontario, but it now sits empty.
“Maybutt is basically now, unofficially, a former ghost town,” said Bill Hillen, treasurer for the Great Canadian Plains Railway Society. “But it’s still entwined in the history of the beginnings of Alberta as a province.”
Today Cody Kapcsos, a Stirling resident, is working to put the former town back on the map.
“I stumbled upon Maybutt back when I was about 16. I got a hold of the Stirling history book and I spent a couple of years trying to figure out where the town was and how it just disappeared,” Kapcsos said.
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The town was originally named New Stirling and was closely tied to the railway, welcoming people who immigrated and came on missions from Utah.
“They were the original pioneers of this area in southern Alberta,” Hillen said.
In 1912, it was renamed Maybutt after the wife of founder William Fisher, to help alleviate confusion in the post office.
There were many amenities in the town including a 50-room hotel, newspaper, general store, and a lumber yard. It was expected to grow to 5,000 people by 1913.
“Unfortunately, as time went by, the rail became less important and the people who were to settle in this area from Utah, resettled in what is now Stirling, Alta. and left this area to a few inhabitants,” Hillen said.
Just last year Kapcsos bought one of the last remaining historical sites in the former town, with the hopes of restoring it.
“I just can’t stand to see it disappear or demolished,” he said.
He’s also trying to get the town’s name and streets back in the spotlight.
“I spent four years trying to put it on the maps and just last year they put 2nd Avenue and 1st Avenue onto the Google street view and Google maps,” Kapcsos said.
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But his plans don’t stop there.
“Ideally, I would love to maybe create some historic store fronts where there used to be little stores and put a plaque on them saying what it used to be,” he added.
He’s also trying to find the former location of a small cemetery where three people are said to be buried.
“There’s a cemetery where there’s a little boy who was shot and two men,” Kapcsos said. “It was said to be in the southwest section of town but I can’t seem to find any history or any names in the Stirling cemetery.”
All to help others remember a piece of Alberta’s history, literally wiped off the map.
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