MARY'S GENEALOGY TREASURES
The first decade of the 20th century throbbed with optimism.
The pioneer era was over. Canada had a transcontinental
railway. The land had been surveyed, creating a system of
roads a mile apart running north and south and two miles
apart running east and west. Homesteaders were expanding
the area of settlement. Most of the newcomers overlooked the
value of the services, institutions, and public works which they
had enjoyed, and had failed to realize that as yet, there were
none of those in the homestead area. Over the coming years
they were to find themselves providing many of these:
churches, schools, and roads.
As they had been for centuries horses still remained the only
practical mode of power. Oxen had been and were still
used by homesteaders but were on the way out. Horses
continued to be used as pack animals. Teams drawing
covered wagons were bringing in settlers from the American
Mid West. Horses pulled surreys, democrats, buggies,
oxcarts, carriages, drays and wagons. The number of
horses had steadily increased, reaching a maximum of
806,000 in 1921 in the Province of Alberta. From then
on dobbin's duties were to be taken over by machines.
The year 1901 marked the arrival of the Motor Age Alberta,
and the need for roads. The first automobile in the city
of Lethbridge was Elliott Galt's 20 HP gasoline powered
Wilton which he brought to the city the summer of 1903.
In 1906 the Government of Alberta found it had 41 cars
within its borders and passed the Automobile Act. It set
the speed limit at 10 miles an hour in towns and 20 in the
country. Owners to pay a three dollar operator's license.
Each driver was given a number but no plate to put on
his car - he to supply that himself. In 1906 the government
established a budget of a half a million dollars for roads and
bridges but 60% went for bridges. Government policy was
to bring them up to strength to carry threshing machines and
steam tractors. Roads were secondary and most of the
roadwork done was because it was uncertain where the
road should be. From then on, in ever increasing numbers,
lines of travel were established.
There was, in this era, an instant fraternity of spirit among men
who owned cars. Any carload of people, full of the new found
spirit of travel, constituted a motor club - the first faint stirring
of the Alberta Motor Association. Automobile clubs had been
formed in the cities and many of the small towns. They urged
that municipalities be given the power to borrow money to
build roads, believing that good roads were of first importance
in the development of the area. Their objectives were good
roads, just and rational highway legislation, proper highway
marking, driving information, safe driving and maps for members.
The first comprehensive road guide of Alberta is reputed to have
carried the advice about the Lethbridge-Cardston strip: "Lethbridge
Goal-Keep Out!". By 1907 there were sufficient car owners in
Lethbridge to form an automobile club. The city commemorated
the event by passing By Law 232 which required owners to
register their cars. It also set the speed limit at 8 miles an hour.
By 1912 there were 2500 drivers in Alberta and they were paying
more for the privilege. The Motor Vehicle Act raised the license
fee to ten dollars plus a dollar for a set of plates. It also set
new speed limits: 20 miles an hour on straight roads and 15
going around corners. By 1913 the number of licensed drivers
jumped to 3733 and the government gave official recognition to
the importance of roads by creating a highway branch within
the department of public works. By 1918 there were 29,000
licensed drivers and trucks had appeared on the roads. The
Provincial Government brought in Alberta's first Highway Act to
present guidelines for a system of highways. Roads were placed
in three categories: main, district and local. In 1919 the federal
government took the first initiative in encouraging a national
system of highways. Alberta's second Highway Act of 1922
classed roads as main highways, essential market roads and
local roads. Essential market roads were given the priority.
As a result, highways did not develop as connecting arteries
of travel.
The same year (1912) a joint project linking Lethbridge and Great
Falls, Montana was being promoted. Art Baalim was in at the
start of the movement. A meeting, held at the Marquis Hotel,
generated such enthusiasm for the Sunshine Trail, which would
run from Mexico to Alaska, that the first link from Lethbridge to
Great Falls was created on the spot.
After vigorous lobbying, Lethbridge became the hub of three major
roads: the Black Trail or Sunshine Trail ran from Butte through
Great Falls and Lethbridge to Calgary, via Vulcan; the Red or All
Red Trail traversed Southern Alberta in an east-west direction:
while the Yellow Trail connected Lethbridge to Cardston and
Waterton lakes. These trails, marked with colored bands on
telephone poles, were blade-graded dirt roads with some of the
low places fresno filled and most of the small streams diverted
through wooden culverts. It was recommended in 1926 that all
highways be numbered in the belief that the province would run
out of colors long before it would run out of numbers. It would be
another thirty years before the Sunshine Trail would become
Highway #4 and the Yellow Trail Highway #5.
A new highway act was brought in scrapping the 1922 legislation.
Highways were divided into main and secondary, the term
"essential market roads" was dropped and supplanted by district
roads. Local roads were still local. The province finally agreed
that roads should be kept open in winter. By 1929 a total of
833 miles of highway had been gravelled.
Good roads might have been the road to prosperity in 1930, but
unfortunately, there was no way. The economy sagged and
the Bennett-Buggy became the symbol of the times. R.B.
Bennett was Prime Minister of Canada at this unfortunate
time and had his name attached to the horse-drawn buggy.
A Bennett-Buggy was usually a Model T Ford or a Chev
490 which a farmer could not afford to repair or replace.
The engine would be removed and the horseless carriage
would be converted back to a horse-drawn carriage.
Harry Malcolm, the principal, Verna and I rode to school
in a horse-drawn cart. It was a cart made from a 1925
Ford front axle complete with rubber tires. Later we hauled
beets with a wagon converted from a 1928 G.M.C. truck
chassis.
Early in 1936 the government introduced a five-year plan,
calling for a thousand miles of hard surfacing (blotter coating).
The number of vehicles on Alberta roads topped 100,000
after slumping to 86,000 in 1932. The campaign was on for
hard, dustless roads. Hard surfacing on Highway #5 between
Lethbridge and Cardston, the Yellow Trail, was completed in 1951,
and the pavement was extended to Waterton in 1956. The
Sunshine Trail was graded in 1944 and regraded in 1946. It was
hard surfaced in 1947 and again in 1960. Highway #4 remains
the same today amidst rumors of twinning.
Acknowledgments: A History of Motoring in Alberta, by Tony
Cashman from the Alberta Motor Association
Acknowledgement.- Lethbridge Place Names
Alex Johnston / Barry R. Peat
Edmonton - Feb. 8, 1919 - Indications are that the long-used
trail from Lethbridge to Magrath is to be abandoned owing to
the unwillingness of the Department of Public Works to
renew the lease on-the old trestle bridge over the coulee
on the former C.P.R. St. Mary's right of way a few miles
south of Lethbridge. The bridge belongs to the C.P.R. and
is now in such a condition that it would require $10,000 to
put it in shape, and the government does not care to spend
that amount of money on a temporary structure which does
not belong to the province.
It is likely that the old trail about a mile east will be put in
shape again and a low level bridge over the coulee will be built.
The trail was used before the old C.P.R. grade was made
available on the abandonment of the St. Mary's grade.
Miscellaneous Histories