Rosthern's story begins around 1890, when Mennonite settlers led by Gerhard Ens started arriving in the area. Their coming coincided with the building of the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake & Saskatchewan Railway to Prince Albert. A post office opened in 1893, the community became a village by 1898, and in 1903 Rosthern was incorporated as a town.
How the town got its name is a matter of several stories. One tells of a man named Ross who drowned in the creek running through the town while the railway was going through in the late 1880s, with "terne," an old English word for a pool, added to make the name. The more likely explanation is that a homesick railway worker brought the name from Rostherne, a village in the United Kingdom.
Today Rosthern sits where Highway 11 meets Highway 312, about halfway between Prince Albert and Saskatoon. It has a public library, parks and walking trails, a curling rink, a bowling alley and an outdoor pool completed in 2005. Valley Regional Park, founded in 1974 on the shore of Rempel Lake, offers an 18-hole golf course and a campground. Nearby are the Seager Wheeler Farm, a National Historic Site of Canada, and the Rosthern Mennonite Heritage Museum, built about 1909 to 1910. The town is also home to more than ten churches of many denominations.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Rosthern” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.