Biggar began with the railway. Before the Grand Trunk Pacific came through in 1908, the main route in the area was the nearby Swift Current–Battleford Trail. The village was incorporated in 1909 and took its name from William Hodgins Biggar, the railway's general counsel. The GTP made Biggar a divisional point, building a large station and roundhouse, and the community grew as it became a home terminal where train crews were changed. Biggar became a town in 1911.
Settlement continued through the following years, and the town's first classroom was set up on the second floor of the Biggar Hotel in early 1910 while Biggar Public School was being built. For many years the town's prosperity was tied to the railway. Up to 500 local people once worked for Canadian National Railway, which took over the GTP, though that number has since fallen to under 200. As rail work declined, Biggar turned to agriculture and related industries, and is now home to the Prairie Malt barley processing plant.
The town is best known for its slogan, "New York is big, but this is Biggar." According to the Biggar Museum and Gallery, a survey crew painted it on a town sign in 1914 as a prank, and it stayed there until it was officially adopted in 1954. Biggar is also the hometown of Olympic curling champion Sandra Schmirler, honoured with Sandra Schmirler Olympic Gold Park, and the place where Milo Hanson harvested a world-record white-tailed deer in 1993.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Biggar, Saskatchewan” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.