Michael's Hospital was constructed on the corner of 13th Street and 9th Avenue South. Lillian Parry typifies the commitment to health care in the community. She was the first woman elected to council in There were many activities that women participated in to support the Second World War effort. In a group of educators and citizens began the campaign to bring post-secondary education to Lethbridge and southern Alberta.
On April 17, their efforts were rewarded when Lethbridge Community College, the first of its kind in Alberta, opened. In September another milestone was passed as the University of Lethbridge began classes. In the University moved from the College campus to west Lethbridge. Anne Campbell has left an indelible mark in musical excellence the final half of the 20th century.
She represents the cultural aspect of Lethbridge and the contributions to young people. It was when Anne Campbell began her junior choir at Southminster United Church and through the years the choir grew in size and age, becoming the Anne Campbell Singers, the Teen Clefts and then the Linnet Singers.
Turn on more accessible mode. Turn off more accessible mode. Page Content. The agriculture industry is an important aspect of Lethbridge's economy. It evolved as the result of assistance provided to the Galts by the Canadian government for construction of the narrow gauge railway. The assistance took the form of land grants totaling , hectares 1. The land was to be sold by the Galts to pay for their railway. The land given to the Galts is semi-arid, and the challenge was to make it attractive to settlers.
Irrigation was the obvious answer. Elliott Galt and his brother-in-law Charles A. Magrath and Galt also turned to the leading experts on irrigation in North America. Mary and Waterton Rivers. Settlers from Utah followed. Elliott Galt and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints concluded an agreement in that saw church members build the main canal from the St. In return for these Charles Ora Card ploughed the first furrow for the project on 26 August , and on 4 September the main canal reached Lethbridge.
There have been five milestones in the development of irrigation in southern Alberta. First, many small projects involving no more than a few acres each were built in the years to Next came the large company projects engineered by the Galt companies, CPR and others during the period to Third, user owned and operated irrigation schemes such as the Taber and Lethbridge Northern Irrigation Districts came into existence after passage of the Irrigation Districts Act in Mary River Development project.
The final milestone was the development of pivot irrigation systems that allowed irrigation of rougher land than could be irrigated before. Four principles have evolved: break the velocity of the wind by farming in strips; keep the soil covered by dead or living vegetation; keep bare soil lumpy or ridged; and, stop active erosion by whatever emergency means are available.
The Agriculture Canada Research Station at Lethbridge had much to do with the development of these principles. The Station is the largest regional agriculture research facility in Canada. Agriculture has become the mainstay of the regional economy. In there were 11, farms in southern Alberta with a capital value of Over businesses processed food or feed for markets here and around the world.
Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden. Designed in the early s by renowned Japanese landscape artist Dr. The 1. A meandering path joins five traditional Japanese Garden styles, combining trees, shrubs, rocks, waterfalls, ponds and bridges to create vistas of unparalleled beauty.
The sound of a thrumming waterfall invites the visitor deep into the Garden. The Pavilion, patterned after 16th century architecture, houses a number of art and cultural exhibits throughout the season. Tours of the Garden are available, lead by hostesses dressed in traditional yukatas.
Standing as a symbol for amends now made, the Garden's name means Japanese and Canadian friendship. Lethbridge has a semi-arid climate and has been called the second driest city in Canada, averaging Lethbridge is known as Alberta's windy city. With extreme wind speeds, sometimes reaching hurricane velocity of kilometres This makes it the second windiest city in Canada.
Lethbridge enjoys an unique phenomenon known as the Chinook winds. Characterized by a highly visible "Chinook Arch" in the western sky, warm Pacific winds flow over the Canadian Rocky Mountains onto the Alberta prairies. Lethbridge serves as a hub for commercial activity in the region by providing services and amenities.
Many transport services, including Greyhound buses, four provincial highways , rail service and an airport , are concentrated in or near the city. This partnership promotes business related to alternative energy, including wind power , solar power and biofuel , in the region.
Lethbridge was designated a Cultural Capital of Canada for the — season. The city is home to venues and organizations promoting the arts. Founded in , the Allied Arts Council of Lethbridge is the largest organization in the city dedicated to preserving and enhancing the local arts.
The campaign identified three arts buildings: the Yates Memorial Centre, the Bowman Arts Centre, and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery as cornerstone facilities in the community requiring care and attention. The Southern Alberta Art Gallery is a contemporary gallery; the community arts centre Casa, administered by the Allied Arts Council; and the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery produces contemporary exhibitions including works from its extensive collection of Canadian, American and European art.
The Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra has been performing in the city since New West Theatre performs at the Genevieve E. Yates Memorial Centre using its two theatres: the seat proscenium Yates Theatre and the seat black box Sterndale Bennett Theatre. The city, which began as a frontier town, has several historical attractions.
Originally known as Fort Hamilton, Fort Whoop-Up was a centre of illegal activities during the late 19th century. It was first built in by J.
Healy and A. Hamilton as a whiskey post and was destroyed by fire a year later. A second, sturdier structure later replaced the fort.
As the cultural centre of southern Alberta, Lethbridge has notable cultural attractions. Several structures such as the post office are prominent on the skyline of Lethbridge. Less well-known than the High Level Bridge, the post office is one of the most distinctive buildings in Lethbridge. Built in , the four-storey structure is crowned by a functioning clock tower.
Lethbridge has designated 16 percent of the land within city boundaries as parkland, including the hectares 1, acres Oldman River valley parks system. The narrow-gauge yards were perched on the edge of the coulee, while the standard-gauge yards were several blocks east. With the completion of this new line, Lethbridge became the hub of an east-west railway line from Dunmore Junction to the Crowsnest Pass and of a north-south line from Calgary to Coutts. This photograph shows staff on and around narrow-gauge engine no.
Photographie Vue du centre-ville de Lethbridge en direction nord-ouest depuis la colonne montante de la 9e rue, Alb.
This photograph, taken by Arthur Rafton-Canning in , shows downtown Lethbridge looking northwest from the 9th Street standpipe. The homes that appear in the foreground were gone in a few years, replaced by commercial buildings. Between and , Lethbridge experienced its first economic boom.
Most of the commercial buildings visible in this photograph were built in those years. Arthur Rafton-Canning captured every aspect of the growth of southern Alberta in those years. He often returned to the same locations over a period of years to document changes. Looking into north Lethbridge from the railroad tracks at about 19th Street, around North Lethbridge was known for its neighbourhoods where people with similar backgrounds lived together.
Early streets in north Lethbridge were characterized by narrow lots 7. Small miners' cottages were built on these lots, some of which survive today. The Miners Library, a social club in north Lethbridge, sponsored sports teams and community activities for more than years until it closed in By controlling all of these economic threads, Galt hoped to ensure the success of his investments in southern Alberta. This map shows the Galt companies' enterprises in southern Alberta and northern Montana.
Railways created markets for coal and brought settlers to irrigated lands. The settlers created a new market for coal, and in turn grew agricultural products that were shipped out on the railway.
Sir Alexander Galt developed an integrated approach to his enterprises in southern Alberta. Each supported the others by creating new business opportunities. Soil erosion due to wind has always been a problem for farmers in southern Alberta. Strip farming, trash cover and no-till techniques combat the effects of the wind. Chris Gibson took this photograph showing a dust storm rolling in over Pearce Alberta in November The earliest published example of a plan for strip farming was a letter from Lorenzo P.
Tuff published in the Lethbridge Herald on August 7, Although a novelty at the time, strip farming has become a standard soil conservation technique in southern Alberta. Early experts in agriculture advocated deep ploughing and summer fallowing, two techniques that proved to be a disaster in southern Alberta. The federal government encouraged ranching by leasing large tracts of grazing land at one cent per acre, as well as removing the import tariff from American cattle.
The early ranching industry was a mix of individuals, small partnerships and large companies. Ranchers and cowboys developed a sub-culture of their own on the Canadian plains. The first ranchers in southern Alberta were men discharged from the Mounted Police who took up land in the Fort Macleod district. Photographie Vue de la ville de Cardston, Alb. The quarter sections of land immediately surrounding the settlement were numbered, and the numbers put into a hat. Each man drew for his quarter section.
Twenty cm of snow fell the night the settlers arrived at their new home. The town plan was divided into three tiers of four blocks each, with lots 17 square rods square metres in size.
Card took ten selected families with him to Lee's Creek. They arrived with nine wagons, twenty-three horses, forty head of cattle and crates of chickens. William Pearce right and L. Periera can be seen on the upper veranda of the Hotel Dunmore, around His work led him to be commissioned to write the Northwest Irrigation Act in , legislation that governed the development of water resources in western Canada until they became a provincial responsibility in Pearce came west in as one of ten land surveyors charged with surveying the Northwest Territories.
By he was fully involved in the assessment of irrigation practices and laws throughout North America. Pearce was seen by some of his colleagues as an impractical dreamer, but his vision and belief in irrigation transformed much of the Canadian west.
This photograph of Charles Alexander Magrath was taken between and Among his local and regional accomplishments, Magrath assisted in surveying the townsite of Lethbridge. He also hired William H. Fairfield to establish an Experimental Farm at Lethbridge. Magrath arrived in Lethbridge in July He quickly established himself as a community leader, becoming the first President of the Board of Trade in September and first Mayor of Lethbridge by acclamation on February 2, Magrath came west from Ontario in as a young surveyor and remained in that occupation until , when he received an offer from Elliott T.
Photographie Canal d'irrigation du projet St. This photograph taken around shows the irrigation canal of the St. Mary's Project. The town of Magrath can be seen in the background. The townsite was surveyed in early , and the first six homes built in the spring of that year. William D. Bennett of Dingle, Idaho, and his family received the call to move north to Canada in a letter with the return address "Box B" - the official return address of the LDS Church.
Any Mormon who received a letter bearing this return address knew that it was a call to serve. The method of canal construction shown in this photograph is the same as the one that was used in to In this photograph, a construction crew and horse-drawn equipment can be seen at work on the Milk River irrigation canal near the Seventh Mile Cut. Ironically, the years and were two of the wettest seen for many years.
Completed construction was damaged by flooding, and the torrential rain hindered both new construction and the settlement of Magrath, Raymond and Stirling.
The townsite was one mile square, acres. It was divided into ten acre lots, with a road running around each, and laneways dissecting each lot into four 2.
This provided room for residents to build homes, stables and outbuildings and keep large gardens. Stirling has retained its original layout, possibly the last Mormon-founded community in North America to have kept its church-designed settlement pattern. For that reason, it was designated a National Historic Site in This photograph taken in September shows the house and general store owned by Theodore Brandley in Stirling, Alberta.
He and the other founders of the village arrived at the railway station on May 5, Flood irrigation is an ancient technique, and the first method used to bring water to southwestern Alberta. It did have one important limitation - gravity. The first pivot sprinkler irrigation system was installed on the Campbell Brothers' farm east of Burdett, Alberta, in May This system and subsequent refinements represent the current level of irrigation technology. It wasn't until that the first two hand-move sprinkler systems were introduced to southern Alberta.
These systems allowed farmers to irrigate on rough land and apply water from a low point to a high point. This photograph shows an unidentified man using floodwater to irrigate a field. This photograph of the north side of Galt Gardens shows the irrigation ditch and trees two years after being planted in the park. The arrival of irrigation water literally transformed the town. The trees planted in and around Galt Gardens were only the start of a large-scale beautification program.
Until the first municipal waterworks system went into service on January 1, , Lethbridge depended on water supplied from the irrigation system. Coal might have been the "bread and butter" of Lethbridge, but water supplied by irrigation was its lifeblood.
Quand: By the s the Blackfoot people and culture were reeling from the impact of the whiskey trade, the transcontinental railway and settlers flooding onto the Canadian prairies. Qui: After the Mounted Police had a role as a buffer between the Blackfoot and the changes that threatened them. Quoi: Nicholas Sheran stands at the entrance to his coal mine. Quand: After Sheran's death in May , ownership of the mine passed to his sister, Mrs. Qui: Marcella then recruited a cousin, James Sheran, to come from the eastern United States to operate the mine.
Quoi: "Coaldale" was inhabited by the Watson family after Elliott Galt moved, along with the rest of Lethbridge, to prairie level in Qui: Elliott Galt was a "hands-on" manager of his business affairs in Lethbridge, living in the community during its early years. Quoi: This undated photograph is of William Lethbridge, after whom the city of Lethbridge, Alberta, is named. Quand: Altogether, seventy-one people bought 14, ordinary shares in the Galt companies in offerings conducted on September 7, and February 16, Quoi: The incline railway was powered by a stationary steam engine at the top of the coulee, with endless-rope haulage.
Quand: Until the incline railway shut down on May 15,, it was the most prominent link between the "old" Lethbridge of the river valley and the "new" Lethbridge of the prairies.
Qui: The Galts were never afraid to spend time and money on the latest equipment and techniques. Quoi: Drift mines, although easy to dig, could only follow the coal seam for about m due to the limitations of the ventilation systems used in the s and s. Quand: Drift coal mining in the river valley did not completely cease when the Galt companies quit in Qui: In Fred L. Quoi: Since the coal in the Lethbridge field lay in a relatively flat deposit, finding it was easy.
Quand: This photograph showing the above-ground workings of Galt Mine No. Qui: "Galt Coal," the trademark name of the Galts' product, was used in homes across western Canada and was also shipped to the northwestern United States. Quoi: The Legg cutters were used to undercut the coal seam. Quand: The Legg cutters used in the first years of coal mining ran on compressed air.
Qui: William Stafford right , Dave McLean left and an unidentified man are shown in front of a drift mine entrance with a new coal cutter, in Quoi: The first collective agreement signed in the Lethbridge field ran from June 1, to March 31, Quand: January 15, An unidentified coal miner leaves the Standard Mine in Shaugnessy, Alberta, at the end of the last shift before the mine closed.
Qui: What is interesting about the first agreement is that no mention is made of what the miners were to be paid. Quoi: The logs were floated down the river from the company's Timber Limit 80 in the Porcupine Hills. Quoi: Galt No. Qui: Altogether, men died in the mines of the Lethbridge field over a period of eighty-two years. Quoi: Bull teams can be seen moving out of the river valley at Coalbanks, about Quand: For many travellers, listening to the bull whackers was the only interesting thing about the trip.
Quoi: This photograph shows the Alberta docked at Medicine Hat in
0コメント