The small community of Brooking, Saskatchewan started to pop up in the early 1900’s. People started to settle in the area and homestead. With word of the railway coming through, most people arrived. It was known as Stowe, then Buffalo Valley and eventually Brooking. The name Brooking came from Brooking, South Dakota. This ghost town in Saskatchewan has no residents.
The post office opened in 1911 followed by a three-storey hotel, restaurants, blacksmith, barber, bakery, poolroom, livery barn and of course, elevators. There were high hopes for the town but when it was announced that a nearby town was going to become a divisional point, the town fell apart past. Many buildings “accidently” burned down. in 1935 only a few businesses remained. The post office close in 1961 and the Co-op dissolved. The station closed in 1965 and the Pool elevator in 1968.
The town was abandoned, adding another ghost town to the list of Saskatchewan ghost towns.
In 1999, the film “Revenge of the land” used the elevator as part of the set. It was repainted “promise” + “”John Hawke + Co.” for the movie. That is why this is known as the promise elevator as well as Brooking. Today, a couple houses remain in the town, but they are in a farmers field. We would normally not visit buildings in the middle of the field but we visited during the winter when it was cold and snowy and there was no planted field. *BEWARE: OPEN WELL ON SITE*
The elevator remains but the small shed beside the elevator was destroyed in 2021 during a wind storm.
