Rouleau sits on Highway 39, about 35 kilometres southwest of Regina. A post office was open here by April 1, 1895, when the area was part of the provisional District of Assiniboia in the North West Territories, and the community incorporated as a village on July 23, 1903.
The name honours Charles Borromée Rouleau, who served as a magistrate in Battleford from 1883 to 1887 and sat on the first Council of the North-West Territories. Grain shaped the early years: Rouleau became known as Saskatchewan's first 1 million bushel town, the first point in the province to ship that much grain in a single year.
Today the town is best known as the filming location of the CTV series Corner Gas, which turned Rouleau into the fictional Dog River. The production built a full-size gas station and coffee shop at the western entrance to town, and the grain elevator was repainted with the name Dog River. In 2007 then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper stopped in for a cameo appearance.
After the show wrapped, the set buildings were bought by entrepreneur Sylvain Senecal and turned into a museum and souvenir shop; the set was demolished in November 2016. The building used as the show's grocery store burned in 2014, and the grain elevator was lost to fire in November 2021.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Rouleau, Saskatchewan” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.