 The hardware store closed in 1938, when Edward McIntyre left Goodwater with his family for British Columbia, during an economically difficult time in the Goodwater community.Established in 1899, the Canadian Northern Railway was formed out of the bankruptcy of the regional Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company—a local 27 kilometer "branch line" between Winnipegosis and Lake Manitoba (and, later, Portage La Prairie) in Manitoba.Donald Mann and William Mackenzie, both former employees of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), purchased the defunct LMR&CC and rebranded it as the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) with the vision to compete with the CPR by consolidating and constructing alternative "branch lines" serving communities outside the CPR's transcontinental lines.