Calder's story begins in 1888, when a number of Icelanders and others settled just south of where the village now stands. They called their settlement the "Lögberg" district, or "Lögberg of the Northwest Territories." By 1897 they were comfortably settled, and that year Ruthenian families from Bukovina and Galicia began arriving by rail at Saltcoats. Government agents escorted them to quarter sections within five to ten miles of the present village site, and Romanian immigrants from Bucovina homesteaded the remaining land south of Calder between 1899 and 1905.
The Canadian Northern Railway came through in the fall of 1910 and called the spot "Third Siding West of Shellmouth." Track reached Mike Rohatensky's homestead before construction stopped for the winter, and a railway loop was built so trains could turn back toward Russell. Thirteen local business leaders signed a petition to incorporate that October, and Calder became a village on January 18, 1911. It was named for MLA James Alexander Calder. In 1929 the Calder Electric Company brought electric power and put up several street lamps.
Schooling grew along with the settlement. Early rural schools such as Chernawka, Mostetz and Torsk served nearby farm families, and Calder School District #515 formed after the village incorporated, with first classes held in a lean-to beside a poolroom on Main Street. A new school was built in 1961, and today it teaches kindergarten to Grade 8. Calder marked Saskatchewan's centennial in 2005 by introducing a village flag designed through a student competition, and it celebrated its own 100th anniversary in July 2011.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Calder, Saskatchewan” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.