Okotoks

There are many scholarships for Okotoks students. If you are searching for scholarships for a particular high school located in Okotoks, please select the appropriate school from the list below. The scholarship database contains scholarships for Okotoks students in the following categories:

Okotoks High School Scholarships
Okotoks College Scholarships
Okotoks University Scholarships

For School Specific Scholarships, select one of the schools below:

The town of Okotoks is situated within southern Alberta, around 11 miles or 18 kms south of Calgary. The town though is part of a cooperative of communities within the Calgary Region referred to as the Calgary Regional Partnership. Okotoks has become a famous bedroom community for the City of Calgary. Based on the 2006 Census, the population of the town has increased by 46 percent since 2001 to just over 17,000 residents.

The name Okotoks originates from a Blackfoot First Nation word for "rock," "ohkotok." The rock being referred to is the largest glacial erratic within the earth that is situated about 8 km west of the town.

Many First Nations tribes who moved through the region before European settlement, made use of the rock as a marker in order to locate the Okotoks river crossing. These nomadic tribes followed the travels of the buffalo herds for their subsistence. David Thompson explored the region as early as 1800. Soon trading posts sprang up, including one established during 1874 at the Sheep River crossing on the current Okotoks townsite. This crossing was on a trade route known as the Macleod Trail, that led from Fort Benton, Montana to Calgary.

The sawmill which was established by John Lineham along the Sheep River during the year 1891 operated for 25 years and was a key part of the local economy. At one time it hired 135 people, producing an average of 9,000 m or 30,000 feet of lumber on a daily basis. The growth of the Canadian Pacific Railway created a demand for railway ties and the mill helped meet that demand. Logs were delivered from the west via the Sheep River. The mill has long since disappeared but one specific building, amongst the oldest remaining in the township still stands. It housed an award-winning dairy and butter farm from the 1920s to the 1940s. It currently houses a restaurant and law firm.

In the year 1900, just west of Okotoks, four brick-making plants were opened. Many of the very first brick buildings in Okotoks, a few of which still stand now, were constructed making use of locally-made brick. The industry reached its peak in 1912, when twelve million bricks were made. The outbreak of the first World War caused the shutdown of "Sandstone" as it was known.

Oil was discovered west of Okotoks during the year 1913. The town of Okotoks became the supply centre. In its heyday, from 1913 to the 1960s, Okotoks was busy with horses, wagons, and transports hauling various kinds of equipment to the oil fields, and crude oil back through town to refineries within Calgary.

The town of Okotoks has been hosting a yearly collector car auction in the latter part of the month of May since the year 1974. It is the longest running collector car auction in Canada.

The town of Okotoks was among a small number of communities of its size to get its very own airport. Over the years, there were various small air shows at the airport and it was also the home of an aircraft charter company, a flight school, and a helicopter flying school. The site has presently transformed into an airpark community known as the Okotoks Air Ranch, where the owners of the property, if they would like, can build houses together with attached hangars for their private planes.