"Pile of Bones", "Queen City of the West"--Regina's nicknames accurately reflect the city's exotic and varied history.
Founded in 1882, Regina was one of the new towns that appeared along the Canadian Pacific Railway line as the "end of steel" marched steadily westward. J. William Brennan shows that Regina was, and in many respects still is, a "man-made city ": its location determined by the CPR and a cabal of land speculators. He demonstrates how a variety of forces--immigration and "King Wheat," the postwar oil and potash boom, and the spread of American popular culture--shaped the economic and social fabric of Regina over nearly a century. He offers finely crafted thumbnail sketches of her prominent and powerful citizens, and of more obscure citizens who nonetheless contributed greatly in the fields of labour and social services to the city's development.
Handsomely illustrated with 150 historical photographs--many never before published--Regina: An Illustrated History reflects on the unique past of this remarkable western city.

J. WILLIAM BRENNAN is an associate professor of history at the University of Regina. A well-known authority on Regina, he is the editor of Regina Before Yesterday: A Visual History, 1882 to 1945, the chairman of the Publications Board of the Canadian Plains Research Centre, and a member of the editorial boards of Saskatchewan History and the Urban History Review.

J. William Brennan's profile page