Plan for park to recognize coal mining history is good news
A tip of the hat to the Melcor Development Corp. and the Lethbridge Historic Society for their plans to build a historic coal mining interpretive park in the Hardieville Legacy Ridge, on the old No. 6 Mine area.
The three-acre site will commemorate the historic mining legacy of the coal mines and mining families and their pioneer existence that built this area. It was called Coalbanks for obvious reasons!
There seemed to be a reluctance to retain the name, even to modern times, even with the present councils, because of the lack of celebrating this mining past, as do the other many of the three western provinces’ mining communities. Normally the historic mining recognition day is the biggest allday celebration of the year.
When I approached the city fathers in Lethbridge about this lack of mining recognition after I moved my family here, the mayor of the day just shrugged his shoulders and said, “There's seven other members in the council besides me.”
I visited each of the mining communities on their annual holidays, even Estevan, Sask., where they had an elongated strike (in 1931) and a bloody riot ensued for month after month. Yes, the miners and unions earned their stripes in blood, as the saying goes!
Naturally, it seemed very odd to me to find the complete absence of even the mention of coal mines in the Lethbridge area and now the mention of setting up a three-acre coal mining park has a tremendous value-packed meaning for me, having been involved in the industry myself for so long. The was a vacuum of historic evidence of the past coal mines, in spite of the fact that the industry’s presence resulted in the building of the railroad and the most famous bridge in the world.
The word “overdue” has tremendous meaning in the good news of this new coal mining park announcement. A huge “thank you” to the builders of this park on behalf of the past thousands of hard-working miners that slaved for so little recompense under the most dangerous working conditions imaginable, and whose wives rushed to the pit head when the mine whistled that an accident had happened underground.
That feeling is impossible to describe or replicate, or to describe the meaning of this recent mining park announcement for those that ever toiled underground for that “black gold.”
Frank J. Toth
Lethbridge