Yellow Grass is a town in southern Saskatchewan, Canada. It is located in the Rural Municipality of Scott No. 98, approximately northwest of Weyburn, at the junction of Highways 39 and 621. The town is located on the Canadian Pacific Railway Soo Line, at an elevation of above sea level.
The town was founded as an unincorporated village and named after the yellow prairie grass that surrounds the area. The town was built shortly after the railway line was completed in 1893. The town site itself was surveyed in 1882. The town applied to the North-West Territories government July 22, 1903 and became an incorporated village. On February 15, 1906 Yellow Grass was incorporated as a town.
The town itself has a primarily agricultural based economy. Like other Saskatchewan rural communities the town has seen a large portion of young residents leave to find work in other parts of Canada. Yellow Grass has grown little since the boom years in the early twentieth century; many resident families are descendants of the original pioneers.
Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Yellow Grass had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
Economy
Yellow Grass has a primary agrarian economy, with many residents working as farmers, or providing services to farmers. Primary crops grown around Yellow Grass are wheat, durum wheat, barley, lentils, peas, canola, and flax. Some local producers also raise cattle, as well as bison and elk. A tertiary service industry provides general services for town residents and travellers along Highway 39. A substantial number of residents are employed in the nearby city of Weyburn, many in the manufacturing sector, retail sales, the health region, and in the oilfields.
Yellow Grass has gone through a couple of boom cycles in the early years of the town. The first boom started in 1899, when most of the original town infrastructure was founded. This boom attracted many new businesses to the town, as other towns were not yet as organized. This boom would level off at the start of World War I.
The second, and by far the biggest boom, started in the post war years and continued until the late 1920s as the trading area of the region. The building of Highway 39 and access to larger centres marked the beginning of decline of Yellow Grass as a commercial centre. The onset of the Great Depression and substantial crop failures would take its toll on the town.
The agricultural industry made a recovery in the post-World War II years with record setting crops, and the community recovered its municipal services. In the last few decades the economy has been relatively stagnant, with most of the town's youth leaving to find employment in larger communities. Pressures on farming due to weather and high fuel and equipment costs have been keeping the growth of agriculture in check.