William Bird had a great idea. But unfortunately he picked the wrong place.

Bird settled in Edmonton around 1870 and decided to start a flour mill at the mouth of a little creek that entered the North Saskatchewan River at present day Rafter’s Landing. In 1871, he imported machinery from England by steamboat (the S.S. Northern Star) and started his venture. Soon the waterway was called Mill Creek.

It didn’t take long for the operation to run into trouble. As anyone who knows Mill Creek can attest, the water levels fluctuate wildly throughout the year and the mill just couldn’t operate steadily and closed just three years after it began. The mill didn’t stick, but the name did and the river flats neighbourhood around it, which came to be named Gallagher Flats and then Cloverdale,

The coming of a little railway kicked it all into gear. When the Edmonton Yukon & Pacific Railway (EY&PR) was formed in 1899, it held the promise of being the first railway to reach Edmonton. The route chosen wound its way up the Mill Creek valley and crossed the Low Level Bridge.

Proximity to rail helped develop Gallagher Flats into a bustling commercial and industrial site, with brickyards, lumberyards, coal mines, an abattoir, acreages and a few houses for good measure. The first trained pulled across the river in 1902 and even today evidence of the old rail line survives. One of those fascinating remnants is the Mill Creek Trestle Bridge, alongside 76th Avenue between 91st and 93rd Streets.

The wooden trestle, built by EY&PR between 1900 and 1902, is one of only a few of its type remaining in the province. In 2004, it was declared a Municipal Historic Resource.

City heritage planner David Holdsworth says the trestle was framed with two vertical stacks – called “bents” – under the rails to carry of the weight of the trains straight down to the ground. A framed bent usually consists of two central vertical posts, placed directly under the rails. The number of posts needed in a bent depend on its height and, for this bridge, there are six in each bent. The top of the bents supports a 12 inch by 16inch cap that carries the track above.

The bents are supported by horizontal braces on each side and diagonal “sway” braces spanning diagonally from the top and bottom ends of the horizontal braces, creating an “X” pattern. There are also horizontal braces with “X” bracing connecting adjacent bents on the sides.

Passenger service on the EY&PR was halted in 1928 but the south Edmonton part of the line continued to carry freight to and from various industries, including the Gainers Packing Plant in Mill Creek Ravine, for several more years. All the while, the wooden bridge over the creek carried the load.

The years of importance for the EY&PR were short, as the transcontinental Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and Mackenzie and Mann’s Canadian Northern Railway soon commanded the industry. But the little railway that could was instrumental in transforming Edmonton into a railway centre and played a vital role in the amalgamation of Edmonton and Strathcona by providing a link between those communities.

Edmonton author Colleen Heffernan found inspiration for her book “Mill Creek Kids” from the trains and the stories of the ravine. “It was really my middle son Garreth who triggered the process with his determined adventuring the ravine,” Colleen reveals.

“It’s such a neat place and there’s so much history,” she says. “Mill Creek Ravine is the kind of place that makes you want to know more.”

History marched on and most of the remnants of the EY&P rail line were removed in 1954. The James Macdonald Bridge was built in 1971 and Mill Creek was re-routed into a culvert that now empties south of the Low Level Bridge.

Cloverdale’s industries, including the brickyards and the city’s garbage incinerator, closed by the late 1960s, completing the evolution from working class industrial to a desirable river valley community. The Muttart Conservatory now resides on some of that land, and larger new houses share the space with a few remaining compact older bungalows.

On April 27, 1971, a proposal was introduced to the city council to expand the park holdings in the Mill Creek Ravine area. Thirteen years later, the City officially opened the new Mill Creek Park, with 5.2 kilometres of multi-use trails and 18 foot bridges.

Today, the trestle serves as part of that trail network and affords trail users an elevated view of the creek and the former rail bed. Much of the bridge’s original structure remains intact and the historic ties can still be seen from the side – a visual and tangible connection to the formative years of the city.

Mill Creek Ravine has become a recreational oasis for walking, cycling, in-line skating, birdwatching and just taking a pause from the bustle of the city. In the belly of the valley, Mill Creek Pool continues a tradition that began more than 100 years ago.

There was no official pool in those days, but boys would use rocks and boulders to dam the creek just under the old EY&P Railway Bridge, near modern day 76th Avenue. In 1917, an 18-inch pipe from the nearby Gainer’s packing plant discharged sewage into the creek.

The incident prompted the city’s health officer, a gentleman named Dr. Whitelaw, to question the wisdom of having a public bathing pool in Mill Creek. The city’s sewage maintenance department was authorized to spend “up to $10 in this direction” and eight days later, the bathing facility was re-opened to the public with water to be regularly sterilized.

The City built the current Mill Creek Pool in 1954 at a cost of $175,000. It quickly became one of Edmonton’s most popular places to cool down on a hot summer day. The pool was renovated in 1979 and flooded in August 1990 when a massive storm pushed the water in the creek over its banks.

Information for this article compiled with the assistance of Colleen Heffernan and the staff at the City of Edmonton Archives.