Zelma became an incorporated village on August 10, 1910, in what is now the Rural Municipality of Morris No. 312. In its early years it had a thriving business community, with a general store, lumber yards, a hotel, a bakery, a flour mill and grain elevators. Most of those businesses were gone by the end of the 1940s.
The Zelma Church went up in 1909, built with a load of lumber, $500 and volunteer labour. It began as a Presbyterian church and was reorganised in 1917 as the Zelma United Church.
Schooling came a little later. Until 1912, local children had to attend school in the neighbouring communities of Stonemount or Golden Wheat, because many of the area's farmers, who were bachelors, were reluctant to vote to spend tax money on a school. The school district was finally established in 1912, and classes were held in the church until a one-room schoolhouse was built in 1925. That school closed in 1969, and students were then bussed to Young.
Written from Wikipedia’s article “Zelma, Saskatchewan” (CC BY-SA 4.0), and shared under the same licence.