The Cardston Mercantile and other early businesses

Shortly after arriving, Charles Ora Card opened a small store in a granary behind his home with products he brought from Utah. The Cardston Mercantile building was built on the corner of Main Street and 3rd Ave prior to 1890. The store became part of a cooperative in 1890 under the Cardston Company Ltd. With a board of five members, C.O. Card, J.A. Woolf, N. Hansen, S. F. Allen and E. Harker with H.S. Allen secretary, the Company also opened a cheese factory, a piggery, and the Cardston Implement Store. The Cardston Company Ltd. ran these successful businesses for a few years providing needed goods to the newly growing community. Similar cooperatives had been successful in Utah creating a venue to sell local produce and handmade tools. The goal was to keep money circulating in the community so the communities could grow and flourish. In 1893 the manager of the Cardston Mercantile H.S. Allen informed the Company that he was going to open a general mercantile store of his own. This was a blow to the stock holders but the community was growing and H.S. Allen moved forward with his store. The H.S. Allen store opened in 1893 out of the back of his home and then in a new building on the NW corner of Main Street and 2nd Ave in 1894, across from the Cahoon Hotel. W.H. Steed managed and then later purchased the business. In 1903 when H.S. Allen moved to Raymond he purchased controlling shares in the McCarty store and had it incorporated as the Raymond Mercantile in September 1904. The store is still in business today as the Raymond Mercantile Co. Ltd. at 40 Broadway N. downtown Raymond, AB.