The Majestic Theatre, located at the corner of 4th Avenue and Main Street has been a landmark in the town since it was first built and started operating in 1911. The original building was enlarged substantially in 1916 and was again enlarged and renovated to its present size and appearance in 1929.

It was closed in 1986 and sat unused until 1991 when a non-profit corporation, The Biggar and District Theatre Project, was formed to purchase and renovate the building. A two level addition at the rear of the theatre was built to provide space for meeting rooms and a kitchen was also added. The new theatre opened in 1995 and is used for a variety of community events such as movies, live theatre performances, Arts Council presentations, music and carol festivals, dance recitals and competitions and school programs.

The RM of Indian Head No. 156 incorporated as a rural municipality on August 6, 1884.[2] The first settlers moved into the district in 1882

On 12 January 1977, CN spun off its passenger services as a separate Crown corporation, Via Rail Canada. At its inception, Via acquired all CN passenger cars and locomotives. Following several months of negotiation, on 29 October 1978, Via assumed all CP passenger train operations and took possession of cars and locomotives. Passenger train services which were not included in the creation of Via Rail included those offered by BC Rail, Algoma Central Railway, Ontario Northland Railway, Quebec North Shore & Labrador Railway, various urban commuter train services operated by CN and CP, and remaining CN passenger services in Newfoundland. At this time, Via did not own any trackage and had to pay right-of-way fees to CN and CP, sometimes being the only user of rural branch lines.

Via initially had a tremendous variety of equipment — much of it in need of replacement — and operated routes stretching from Sydney, Nova Scotia to Prince Rupert, British Columbia and north to Churchill, Manitoba. Over 150 scheduled trains per week were in operation, including transcontinental services, regional trains, and corridor services.[citation needed]

While Via remains an independent federal Crown corporation mandated to operate as a business, it is hindered by the fact that it was created by an Order in Council of the Privy Council, and not from legislation passed by Parliament. Had Via been enabled by legislation, the company would be permitted to seek funding on the open money markets as other Crown corporations such as CN have done in the past. It is largely for this reason that critics say Via—like Amtrak in the United States—is vulnerable to federal budget cuts and continues to answer first to its political masters, as opposed to the business decisions needed to ensure the viability of intercity passenger rail service.[4]

The Division of Audio Visual Services came into existence in 1966 following a Council resolution of April 1965. The objective was to develop a centralized audio visual service to support teaching, research and extension. With the growing use of audio visual technology in education the Division has expanded both in size and the diversity of services offered. The Division provided a film and videotape library, equipment services, photographic services, multi-media and sound recording, and a wide array of television services. Starting in the 1980s, the Division was been heavily involved in the use of satellite communication for distance education. The Division was subsequently renamed the Division of Media and Technology, and later Educational Media Access and Production, reflecting an expanding role with new technologies. Following a reorganization ca. 2015, Media Production became part of the Vice-Provost Teaching and Learning portfolio, with some other functions assumed by Information Communications and Technology. The following have served as director of the Division (revised 1994): P.R. Greenough (1967-1972); G.A. Farkas - acting - (1972-1974); G.A. Farkas (1974-1985); D. Fortosky (1985- ).

CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue and the physical size of its rail network, and is Canada's only transcontinental railway company, spanning Canada from the Atlantic coast in Nova Scotia to the Pacific coast in British Columbia across about 20,400 route miles (32,831 km) of track.[1] In the late 20th century, it gained extensive capacity in the United States by taking over such railroads as the Illinois Central.
The railway was referred to as "Canadian National Railways" (CNR) between 1919 and 1960, and as "Canadian National"/"Canadien National" (CN) from 1960 to the present.

The Moose Jaw Wild Animal Park opened in 1929 as a 540-acre zoo. It contained over 200 types of animals from across Canada and the northwestern United States. For almost eighty years the zoo was in operation, educating visitors on different animals and environmental preservation. It closed in 1995.

The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian para-military police force, established in 1873, to maintain order in the new Canadian North-West Territories (NWT) following the 1870 transfer of Rupert’s Land and North-Western Territory to Canada from the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Red River Rebellion and in response to lawlessness, demonstrated by the subsequent Cypress Hills Massacre and fears of United States military intervention. The NWMP combined military, police and judicial functions along similar lines to the Royal Irish Constabulary. A small, mobile police force was chosen to reduce potential for tensions with the United States and First Nations. The NWMP uniforms included red coats deliberately reminiscent of British and Canadian military uniforms.

The NWMP was established by the Canadian government during the ministry of Prime Minister Sir John Macdonald who defined its purpose as "the preservation of peace and the prevention of crime" in the vast NWT. Macdonald envisioned the police force as a para-military force, writing that the "best force would be mounted rifleman, trained to act as cavalry... and styled police". Macdonald's principal fear was that the activities of American traders such as the Cypress Hills Massacre would lead to the First Nations peoples killing the American traders, which would lead to the United States military being deployed into the NWT to protect the lives of American citizens under the grounds that Canada was unable to maintain law and order in the region. Macdonald's greatest fear was that if the Americans occupied the NWT that they would not leave and the region would be annexed to the United States.

In 1874, the NWMP were deployed to the area of the present Alberta border. Their ill-planned and arduous journey of nearly 900 miles (1,400 km) became known as the March West and was portrayed as an epic journey of endurance. Over the next few years, the NWMP established a wide network of forts, posts and patrols and extended Canadian law across the region. The living conditions of the NWMP on the prairies were spartan and often uncomfortable, and only slowly improved over the course of the century.

By 1896, the government planned to pass policing responsibilities to the provinces and ultimately disband the NWMP. However, with the discovery of gold in the Klondike, the NWMP was redeployed to protect Canada's sovereignty over the region and to manage the influx of prospectors. NWMP volunteers were sent to fight in the Second Boer War and, in recognition for that and 30 years of service policing the North-West and Yukon Territories, King Edward VII, awarded the title Royal to the North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP) in 1904.[4] Plans for disbanding the Royal North-West Mounted Police were abandoned in the face of popular oppositions and regional politicians. Large numbers of the RNWMP volunteered for military service during the First World War and the future of the badly depleted force was once again in doubt. Towards the end of the war, however, fears grew about a potential Bolshevik conspiracy and the authorities tasked the RNWMP to investigate the threat. In the aftermath of the violence of the Winnipeg General Strike, the government amalgamated the RNWMP and Dominion Police, to form the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 1920.

The newspaper was first published as The Leader in 1883 by Nicholas Flood Davin, soon after Edgar Dewdney, Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories, decided to name the vacant and featureless site of Pile-O-Bones, renamed Regina by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, the wife of the Governor General of Canada, as territorial capital, rather than the previously-established Battleford, Troy and Fort Qu'Appelle, presumably because he had acquired ample land on the site for resale.
The first Leader Building, Regina, Assiniboia, 1884

"A group of prominent citizens approached lawyer Nicholas Flood Davin soon after his arrival in Regina and urged him to set up a newspaper. Davin accepted their offer – and their $5000 in seed money. The Regina Leader printed its first edition on March 1, 1883."[2] Published weekly by the mercurial Davin, it almost immediately achieved national prominence during the North-West Rebellion and the subsequent trial of Louis Riel. Davin had immediate access to the developing story, and his scoops were picked up by the national press and briefly brought the Leader to national prominence.

Davin's greatest coup was sending his reporter Mary McFadyen Maclean to conduct a jailhouse interview with Riel. Maclean obtained this by masquerading as a francophone Catholic cleric and interviewing Riel in French under the nose of uncomprehending anglophone watch-house guards.

Eight delegates arrived back in Regina on June 26. Attempts of the Trekkers to travel east by car or truck or train were thwarted by RCMP. A public meeting was called for July 1, 1935, in Market Square in Germantown (now the site of the Regina City Police station) to update the public on the progress of the movement. It was attended by 1,500 to 2,000 people, of whom only 300 were Trekkers. Most Trekkers decided to stay at the exhibition grounds.

Three large moving trucks were parked on three sides of the square concealing RCMP riot squads. Regina police were in the garage of the police station which was in Market Square. At 8:17 p.m. a whistle was blown, and the police charged the crowd with batons from all four sides. The attack caught the people off guard before their anger took over. They fought back with sticks, stones, and anything at hand. Mounted RCMP officers then started to use tear gas and fired guns. Driven from the Square, and with the RCMP blocking the roadway back to the Stadium grounds, the battle continued in the surrounding streets for six hours.

Police fired revolvers above and into groups of people. Tear gas bombs were thrown at any groups that gathered together. Plate glass windows in stores and offices were smashed, but with one exception, these stores were not looted, they were burned. People covered their faces with wet handkerchiefs to counter the effects of the tear gas and barricaded streets with cars. Finally, the Trekkers who had attended the meeting made their way individually or in small groups back to the exhibition stadium where the main body of Trekkers were quartered.

When it was over, 140 Trekkers and citizens had been arrested. Charles Miller, a plainclothes policeman, died, and Nick Schaack, a Trekker, later died in the hospital from injuries sustained in the riot. There were hundreds of injured residents and Trekkers were taken to hospitals or private homes. Those taken to a hospital were also arrested. Property damage was considerable. The police claimed 39 injuries in addition to the dead police officer, but denied that any protesters had been killed in the melee; the hospital records were subsequently altered to conceal the actual cause of death.[citation needed]

Trekkers Arthur Evans and George Black who were on the speakers' platform were arrested by plainclothes police at the beginning of the melee.

The city's exhibition grounds were surrounded by constables armed with revolvers as well as automatic fire-arms.[citation needed] The next day a barbed wire stockade was erected around the area. News of the police-instigated riot was front-page news across Canada. About midnight one of the Trek leaders telephoned Saskatchewan Premier Gardiner, who agreed to meet their delegation the next morning. The RCMP were livid when they heard of this and apprehended the delegates for interrogation but eventually released them in time to see the premier.

Premier Gardiner sent a wire to the Prime Minister, accusing the police of "precipitating a riot" while he had been negotiating a settlement with the Trekkers. He also told the prime minister the "men should be fed where they are and sent back to camp and homes as they request" and stated his government was prepared to "undertake this work of disbanding the men." An agreement to this effect was subsequently negotiated. Bennett was satisfied that he had smashed what he believed was a communist revolt and Gardiner was glad to rid his province of the strikers.

The Federal Minister of Justice Hugh Guthrie made the false statement[citation needed][6] in the House of Commons on July 2 that "shots were fired by the strikers, and the fire was replied to with shots from the city police." During the lengthy trials that followed, no evidence was ever produced to show that strikers fired shots during the riot. For his part, Bennett characterized the On-to-Ottawa Trek as "not a mere uprising against law and order but a definite revolutionary effort on the part of a group of men to usurp authority and destroy government."

The On-to-Ottawa Trek was a mass protest movement in Canada in 1935 sparked by unrest among unemployed single men in federal relief camps principally in Western Canada. Federal relief camps were brought in under Prime Minister R. B. Bennett’s government as a result of the Great Depression. The Great Depression crippled the Canadian economy and left one in nine citizens on relief. The relief, however, did not come free; the Bennett government ordered the Department of National Defense to organize work camps where single unemployed men were used to construct roads and other public works at a rate of twenty cents per day. The men in the relief camps were living in poor conditions with very low wages. The men decided to unite and in 1933, and led by Arthur "Slim" Evans the men created Workers' Unity League (WUL). The Workers' Unity League helped the men organize the Relief Camp Workers' Union.

A strike was held in December 1934 with the men leaving the various camps and protesting in Vancouver, British Columbia. After a two-month protest, they returned to the camps after a promise of a government commission to look into their complaints. When a commission was not appointed a second strike was approved by the members and a walkout was called on April 4, 1935.

About 1,000 strikers headed for Ottawa. The strikers' demands were: “(1) that work with wages be instituted at a minimum of 50cents per hour for unskilled workers and trade union rates for skilled labour on the basis of a six-hour day, a five-day week with a minimum of twenty work days per month; (2) that all workers in the camps be covered by the Workman's Compensation Act and that adequate first aid supplies be carried on the jobs at all times; (3) that the National Defense and all military control with the system of blacklisting be abolished; (4) that democratically elected committees be recognized in every camp; (5) that there be instituted a system of noncontributory unemployment insurance; (6) that all workers be given their democratic right to vote; (7) that Section 98 of the Criminal Code, Sections 41 and 42 of the Immigration Act and all vagrancy laws and anti-working class laws be repealed”.

Public support for the men was enormous, but the municipal, provincial and federal governments passed responsibility between themselves. They then decided to take their grievances to the federal government. On June 3, 1935, hundreds of men began boarding boxcars headed east in what became known as the "On-to-Ottawa Trek".

Ellis Hall was designed and built as part of the University’s Medical Complex that included the Medical College Building and the University Hospital. As with the other two buildings, it was clad in locally quarried greystone. Opened in January of 1956, the Hall was designed by Webster & Gilbert to meet the needs of the 275 students in the School of Nursing who would study on campus, work in the hospital and live in residence. With the opening of the University Hospital in 1954, a basic 3-year diploma program was established aimed at producing bedside nurses. Board and room, laundry and uniforms were provided without charge. In addition an allowance of six, eight and ten dollars per month for first, second and third years respectively was granted. The Hall was named after Kathleen Ellis, who served from 1938 to 1950 as the School of Nursing's first director. It has the distinction of being the only building on campus named in honour of a woman. Today Ellis Hall is linked by a walkway to the 1979 Hospital Addition and is still home to the College of Nursing.