Rotarians listened eagerly as Lloydminster Museum and Archives archivist Corine Price recounted the first 25 years of Lloydminster’s history to rotary.
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Wade Blythe, Friends of the Lloydminster Regional Archives chairman, kicked off the Nov. 24 meeting looking to garner support for the group.
“The Friends of the Lloydminster Regional Archives have volunteers coming in to look after cataloguing stuff and digitalizing past history,” he said. “The city doesn’t have a budget for buying like the macro scanner that we bought for doing the Lloydminster Times and those kinds of things.”
He says the main way the group raises funds is through their membership forms.
“We need to raise money for that, so we sell these membership forms,” said Blythe, noting those interested in donating can contact him at wb*****@**aw.ca. “If you get a minimum $30 donation, gets you a tax receipt, but we really would like larger donations if we could.
“We used to have 70 to 80 members, we’re down to about 40, some due to people passing away or moving into a nursing home because it’s the older people in Lloydminster that are interested in the history.”
Following Blythe, Price took everyone back to 1903 as Lloydminster was first being formed.
“Lloydminster began as a colony of settlers from England under the leadership of Anglican Rev. Isaac Barr,” she explained.
She explored a variety of topics, including the early days of Lloydminster and how the city came to be.
Price talked about early leadership in the community as Rev. George Exton Lloyd took over leadership of the Barr Colonists early into their trip to the location of the colony.
Early colonists in Lloydminster experienced hardships as many were not trained or experienced as farmers. Through perseverance and hard work, the colonists managed to settle in and got working on what was soon to be Lloydminster, a name Price explained was not the original choice.
“The original plan had been to call the town Barrview after the colony’s original leader,” she said. “Efforts being made to expunge Barr’s name from any association with the colony, a new name had to be found. Postmaster and committee member George Flamank proposed the name Lloydminster, which combined the name of their popular new leader with the term minster, which means mother church.”
Price covered a number of other topics, including the initial separation of the town and village of Lloydminster on either side of the border, the great fire in 1929 and the eventual amalgamation of the two Lloydminsters into one united city.
Price explained the importance of keeping history alive during an interview after the presentation.
“History is important, in my opinion. I see a lot of young people today that have no idea where they come from, where the town originated, who founded it,” she said. “I think history is important to remember and remember all these stories, maybe a chance to learn about people who came before them and just keep it alive.”
The museum continues to support local history through a variety of exhibits, including a recent traveling exhibit.
“The museum right now actually has an exhibit called the Edwardian Era in the West and it represents what life was like on the Prairies during the Edwardian era, which was approximately between 1899 and 1915,” she said.
The work the museum does aims to preserve history, keeping it alive for future generations to remember.
“Our mandate is to preserve history. We want to become our community’s memory,” said Price.
She says if people are looking to research information from the past, they can stop by the museum.
“They can come to the archives and actually find factual information,” said Price.
People can visit the museum at 4207 44 St. or get more information at Lloydminster.ca/recreation-culture-community/lma-lcsc/
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