Bienfait sits on Highway 18, about 14 kilometres east of Estevan, in the RM of Coalfields. It was incorporated as a village on April 16, 1912, and became a town on March 1, 1957. The Canadian Pacific Railway named it after Antoine Charles Bienfait, a banker with Adolphe Boissevain & Company of Amsterdam, whose firm had been involved in selling Canadian Pacific shares in Europe.
Coal shaped the town's story. In 1931, striking coal miners marched from Bienfait to nearby Estevan, which led to the Estevan Riot. At the head of Main Street on Railway Avenue sits Manitoba & Saskatchewan Coal Company Locomotive #3522, built in 1907 to haul coal from the mines to market until 1968. It was one of the last commercially working steam engines in Canada. The town acquired the locomotive in 1968 and added an old Canadian National Railway caboose in 2000, and the site was listed as a historic place in Saskatchewan on March 28, 2002.
Today the Bienfait Museum is housed in the old CPR station on the east end of town. The Bienfait Coalers play in the Big 6 Hockey League and have won the Lincoln Trophy 15 times, more than any other team. Singer-songwriter Andy Shauf is among the town's notable people.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Bienfait” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.