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and the rest of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, (C.P.R.) Surveyors arrived at the Brandon site. They had travelled from Portage la Prairie by Stern Wheeler boat to Curries Landing where upon, growing impatient to start work, carried their surveying instruments along a wearisome winding trail.  
 
They had slept the night at the Brandon site before the second Paddle boat that was slower had tied up at the Bank of the River, just west of the now First Street Bridge. Mr. Whitehead’s Barge was also Docked there loaded with lumber.  
 
Mr. Hawley wanted to make the Lots wider than they now are, no doubt making the city spread over a larger area, but General Rosser could make more money out of smaller Lots, and so Brandon like many other locations were planned less spacious than they could have been because of some irresponsible person in a position of responsibility chose to take a profit at the cost of future happiness of countless generations.  
 
It was with these railway constructionists that the first woman to enter Brandon arrived. She was Mrs Stinson who travelled from Portage to do the cooking for the Surveyors while they staked out the whole section twenty three on the site of the present city, and section twenty six across the River, most of which was not built upon for many years.  
 
Source: A Horseman and the West. By Beechum Trotter.