Charles Ora Card (November 5, 1839 – September 9, 1906) was the American founder of Cardston, Alberta, the first Mormon settlement in Canada.

[1] Card was a Mormon pioneer as a teenager, traveling from the eastern United States to Utah Territory in the 1850s.

Sixteen-year-old Card assisted by standing guard, hunting buffalo, and carrying women and children across rivers.

In this capacity, he supervised the work and encouraged the men to spend their free time studying scriptures.

[7] He also served as a city councilman for sixteen years, beginning in 1866;[7] his work for education and infrastructure made him a "pillar of the community.

[9] As stake president, he oversaw meetings for 30 church units (wards and branches) 4 times a year.

[13] Travelling with twelve other families from Cache Valley, he founded Cardston, North-West Territories, Canada (in present-day Alberta), on June 3, 1887, at what was then called Lee's Creek encampment.

[1] Mormon immigrants were praised by a Canadian government inspector for their irrigation efforts, but polygamy was outlawed in Canada soon after the settlement was created.

Church president Wilford Woodruff instructed him to return to Canada and expand the settlement, with a goal to make Cardston "permanent and self-sustaining.

"[1] He subsequently purchased the surrounding areas and established settlements at Mountain View, Kimball, Beazer, and Leavitt in present-day Alberta.

[1] A railroad connected the colonies to the outside world, and encouraged more immigration; installation of telephones in the 1890s further developed Cardston.

[1] Card continued to travel frequently between Alberta and Salt Lake City to give reports and receive direction from church leaders.

[14] Card's first wife was Sarah Jane "Sallie" Birdneau, whom he married on October 4, 1867 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

He changed locations every few days, visiting Sarah and Zina in Utah and Lavinia in Idaho as much as he could; he wished to stay with his wives and children for long periods of time, but his situation did not allow this.

[16] Whenever he returned to Utah to report on Cardston's progress to church leaders, he visited Painter and Rigby in Logan and Rexburg, Idaho, respectively.

He introduced new farming technology and played a role in the establishing a school and four church meeting houses in Cardston.

[2] "Under the guidance of Card, irrigation, a village settlement pattern, cooperative economic enterprise, and a web of cultural, social, and religious activities - all elements of a unique way of life - were transferred and adapted from the American Great Basin.

A distinctive Mormon country in southern Alberta is the legacy of Charles Ora Card and the early immigrants.

[16] His served as middle man between the LDS Church and the Alberta Irrigation Company, and was in charge of recruiting people to work on the canal project.

[2] By 1923, "80 percent of the Latter-day Saint population in Canada lived within a 100-mile radius of Cardston,"[1] the city founded by and named after Charles O.