The first pioneers settled the area west of today's Cudworth in the late 19th century. The village was established in 1911 and took its name from the English philosopher Ralph Cudworth. Its early settlers were mostly of Eastern European origin, coming from Germany, Hungary, Poland and Ukraine, and the community still consists mainly of families with Ukrainian and German roots.
Cudworth sits in hilly, partly forested aspen parkland in the Minnichinas Hills, about 85 km north-east of Saskatoon, and is surrounded by a large agricultural community. Today it has a public K-12 school, about 60 local businesses and three churches serving the surrounding rural area. The municipality also operates the Cudworth Municipal Airport.
The town was once one of three in Saskatchewan that still had both an original Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevator and a Canadian National Railway station, though the grain elevator burned in September 2008. The former CN station, built around 1925, is now the Cudworth Heritage Museum and a Municipal Heritage Property on the Canadian Register of Historic Places.
Two miles west of town, on a hill beside Highway 2, is Our Lady of Sorrows Shrine, with an altar, chapel, statue and Stations of the Cross. It was founded after three children saw a sad lady dragging chains and carrying a golden cross, who vanished as they approached. An annual pilgrimage is held on the tenth Sunday after Easter, an official pilgrimage of the Saskatoon Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Cudworth, Saskatchewan” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.