StettlerLocal.com February 23, 2022 @ 11:40am
In June of 1972, the Stettler Board of Trade held meetings with the Stettler Town Council to discuss the possibility of a memorial for Carl Stettler. Council had discussed the idea of a memorial to the town’s namesake repeatedly over the years, but no final plan had ever been decided.
Ted Bartschi approached Town Council and offered to donate $5,000 to help further the project. Bartschi was the last remaining member of the original group of settlers to the Stettler area. Carl Stettler worked on getting people to the area in hopes of establishing a Swiss-German community when CP announced the new townsite.
The unveiling of the final product happened in 1972 and Mr. Bartschi attended. Although the monument dedicated to Carl Stettler and the early settlers in the district has been moved around over the years, it currently sits at the Main Street business park on the south side of Alberta Avenue.
Carl Stettler had arrived in the area around 1903, operating one of the early stopping houses in the district, just a few kilometres east of what would eventually become the townsite of Stettler.
The monument for Carl Stettler now sits south of the Stettler Hotel, which sits on the very lot Carl Stettler had built the original National Hotel back in 1905.
Carson Ellis, Local Historian
Our Town Stettler