You can walk down the ditch and stand over the creek. Look west and you will see a railway trestle. It is still standing on wooden supports. They were laying this line 100 years ago. It follows the same route today. The Hamlet of Smith came into being in the winter of 1913/14 as the ED & BC Railway constructed their bridge over the Athabasca River.
Even through there was a town on the north side they put the railway town of Smith on the south side of the Athabasca and named it after the Chief Engineer, Rathbone Smith.
Whitman Valentine Rathbone Smith was born in 1881 in Mattawa ON/QB. He & his friend Charlie Pozer, worked on the eastern Canadian railroads in the summer months. When it became too cold they headed to Virginia and worked on the Richmond, Fredericksburg, & Potomac Railway which is still in operation today as a division of CSX Rail.
While in Virginia, they met two sisters, Reba & Kitty Waller Barrett, daughters of Kate Waller Barrett. Rathbone married Reba & Charlie married Kitty. Rathbone & Reba had 5 children: Elizabeth, Douglas, William, Valentine & Waller.
Rathbone later became the General Manager of the Edmonton, Dunvegan & British Columbia Railroad. He travelled Northern Alberta extensively due to his position and became a staunch supporter of northern Alberta. In 1916 he predicted that the vast resources of this ‘hinterland’ would make Alberta the richest province in the nation.
Around 1925 the Smith’s left Edmonton and moved back to Virginia. His wife’s mother had passed away. Kate Waller Barrett had been a prominent Virginia physician, humanitarian, philanthropist, sociologist and social reformer. Reba Barrett Smith became Vice President & Superintendent of the National Florence Crittenton Mission which her mother had been instrumental in starting in 1895.
Rathbone who once supervised 1500 men faded into obscurity, probably due to ill health. He passed away in 1946.