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Distribution of grain elevators
in the Brandon area
1910, by the Brandon Commercial
Bureau
One "victim" of Prairie boosterism was accurate
and reliable information. It was not unusual for community
promoters, in this case the Brandon Commercial Bureau,
to distort their claims or the manner in which they
were presented if it meant showing their community in
a better light. For example, the authors of this map
went to great lengths to give the impression that Brandon
was the transportation centre of the Prairies. But in
reality, the boundaries and colours are arbitrary. Almost
any community shown on the map could change the boundaries
and make the same claim as Brandon.
[more]
The map presented here was published by the Brandon
Commercial Bureau, a private lobby group representing
Brandon's business elite. However, it is difficult
to determine the authorship because the Bureau's name
only appears on the map, in small type, in the lower
left corner. The title block, which is printed in
a much larger type, gives the mistaken impression
that the Department of the Interior is responsible
for the map and its contents. By "borrowing"
the department's name, the Bureau has given the map
some added credibility by implying that its information
is endorsed by the federal government.
Community promoters may have helped some urban centres
to experience phenomenal growth, but it also had its
drawbacks. Since it put all western towns and cities
in competition with one another, there was little
cooperation among business and political leaders.
The result often left individual communities at a
disadvantage when dealing with outside pressures -
the railways, international corporations, and the
federal government, for example - even when these
pressures affected their mutual welfare.
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