The town of Battleford was, in
1876, the capital of the entirety of the Northwest Territories. Situated at the junction of the North Saskatchewan and Battle Rivers, as well as being along the planned railroad route passing through the
Qu'Appelle Valley, it would have been a hub for trade along the river as well as down the railroad.
Of course, things never work out the way they're planned; CN officials had the route changed to go through the south - through land they owned - and
Pile O' Bones - now known as
Regina - became the capital of Saskatchewan. There's also a possibly
apocryphal story about how The Battlefords could have become host to the
University of Saskatchewan, but didn't because
Saskatoon held a better party - but that's something for another node.
Battleford - or more correctly, The Battlefords, as
North Battleford, the larger city, was founded due to a CN surveyor's error - is currently host to no less than two
Tim Horton's franchises, a
Walmart, one of the
largest collections of historic weapons in Western Canada, a
National Historic Site, and to some of the better examples of late-1800s-era architecture in
Saskatchewan.