Ridgeville is a hunded miles south of Winnipeg on road 2N, 2 miles north of the US border.  In 2002 when the author visited, the population quoted by the locals was 29 souls, considerably less than the hundreds that lived in the area during it's boom years in the 1960s and probably fewer than lived on the land in the late 1800s.  The land is productive and thriving but fewer people are working it.  It takes more land to be profitable, consequently large scale farming is common.  Often large tracts leased from an absentee owner are set aside for pasture.  The town has a general store with gas, a cafe and miscellaneous buildings including a rare, all-wood grain elevator. 

The town of Emerson sits on the banks of the Red River about 10 miles west of Ridgeville along road 2N.  The US border is an easy stone's throw.  Emerson has many historic buildings and heritage homes.  It began as a railway destination town about 1873 and boomed from 1880 through 1884 when the railway tracks were extended north from Minnesota.  Travellers suddenly had easy access from anywhere east.  Large numbers of settlers began arriving from Ontario to claim the rich, Manitoba, prairie land.  

Richard Smith
     Richard Smith moved his entire family to Emerson prior to the census of 1881.  He believed, as did many other investors and speculators, that Emerson would become the "hub" for rail traffic traveling farther west. By 1883 he had built a new hotel on Church Street called Russell House.  His ad ran weekly in the Southern Manitoba Times from about 1884 until he sold in July of 1889. He also acquired the section of land, 14-1-4,  near Ridgeville and held it for several years.  The Emerson investors who expected to get rich when the railway made its East/West connection through their town had hopes dashed whenWinnipeg was chosen as the centre of trade and transport.  In 1889, Richard moved to Fort William and became very successful in a new business supplying food supplies to the railroad.