Tucked into the rolling prairie landscape of Vulcan County in southern Alberta, Champion sits along Highway 23 roughly 74 kilometres north of Lethbridge and about 147 kilometres south of Calgary. The Little Bow River cuts through the surrounding countryside, and the wide-open grasslands that characterise this part of the province made it well-suited to both farming and ranching from the earliest days of settlement.
The story of Champion begins around 1904 and 1905, when homesteaders arrived from the United States, Eastern Canada, and Britain. Among them was Martin G. Clever, who staked out a quarter section of 160 acres in 1905 – the very land where the community would take root. A coal discovery added momentum to the settlement’s growth; Henry Therriault opened the first local coal mine in 1906, drawing farmers from as far as Nanton and Stavely along a route that passed through Clever’s homestead. Clever recognised the opportunity and encouraged businesses to set up on his land at no charge. Before long, the settlement – then called Cleverville – supported three general stores, a bank, a drug store, a butcher shop, a blacksmith, a livery stable, a restaurant, a lumber yard, and a doctor’s office. When the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in 1910 and its tracks bypassed Cleverville, residents moved their buildings by horse, skid, and wagon to a new location closer to the line, and renamed the community Champion – reportedly after H.T. Champion, a prominent Winnipeg banker with the firm Alloway and Champion. The village received its official charter on May 27, 1911, and continued to grow steadily, adding a grain elevator in 1912, a telephone office, a school in 1913, and a local newspaper called The Champion Chronicle, which ran from around 1918 until 1943.