Mossbank was incorporated in 1912, when the railroad was extended from Expanse. The Canadian National Railway chose the townsite, and the Canadian Pacific Railway set up a neighbouring townsite, Raycraft, to the north along its own line. Pioneers who arrived in the early 1900s wrote of rock piles they took to be Indian graves, and of buffalo skulls left from the great slaughter of the 1800s.
The area's history reaches back further. In 1874, during the Great March West, the North-West Mounted Police camped at Old Wives Lake, north of today's town. A scout for a group of Sioux refugees from Minnesota approached them, and the next day over a hundred men, women and children visited the camp for ceremonies and several days of trading. It was the first First Nations group the Mounties had met on their trek. The first Old Wives Lake Festival in 2009 marked the occasion. The lake was renamed Lake Johnstone by the early Canadian government, but local citizens pushed to restore its original name in the 1950s.
From 1940 to 1944, the No. 2 Bombing and Gunnery School of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan operated outside town, training over 6,000 airmen and employing around 2,200 people. Afterward most of its buildings were sold and moved away, and the Mossbank and District Museum now holds a large collection from the base. In 1957, the Community Hall hosted the debate between Premier Tommy Douglas and Ross Thatcher, which drew reporters from across Canada and over 1,000 spectators in the rain. Streets beside the hall carry both men's names.
Today agriculture is the main industry. The town calls itself the Gateway to Old Wives Lake, where birdwatching trails draw visitors. The museum also includes the Ambroz Blacksmith Shop, a provincial heritage property that Frank Ambroz bought in 1928 and worked for 60 years.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Mossbank, Saskatchewan” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.