Million-dollar homes in the Hat
Two articles this week about gigantic homes. Two $1 million homes appeared in Medicine Hat Real Estate Board’s monthly sales figures for March.
Also, new figures show what little home building there was in 2016 involved much larger floorplans.
That story appears elsewhere in today’s edition.
Building bigger in a worse economy seems counter intuitive.
It seems reasonable however, to think that a person considering building a $1-million home is less exposed to income swings than someone considering building a $500,000 home.
Also of note here is that most new homes are built on contract for the owners, meaning those are not reflected in MLS sales figures.
In March, board president Brooklyn Kalista said higherend homes sales are not common, but are a welcome addition to the market.
Yesterdays
It’s very hard not to read ahead when you’re looking back a century ago.
Another portion of this column has dutifully stayed to the timeline and mostly relayed events as they were presented in the News 100 years past.
This week, it proved too tantalizing as the tumultuous year of 1917 unfurls.
In present day we mark the 100th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge, one of the greatest military feats in our nation’s history.
A collection of the News front pages from that time is posted on our website (reports from the front were delayed more than a week by censors and technological limitations).
Only days earlier the United States had declared war on Germany.
Two events that formed a point in which the new world began taking its place alongside old world powers, weakened by the massive scale of the First World War.
In Russia, one revolution had installed a democracy, but that country was lurching toward another revolution in the autumn.
In May 1917, conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden proposed a Union Government as a path to bring in conscription. Denied by Liberal Leader Wilfred Laurier over concerns of fanning nationalism in Quebec, Borden would bring forth a draft in the summer, then a union government in the fall.
The year’s provincial election would be the last won by the Liberal Party. In it, Alberta’s overseas soldiers and electors in Claresholm sent the first ever women to a legislature in the entire British Empire.
The 50th anniversary of Confederation, the Halifax Explosion, the founding of the National Hockey League, and the creation of income tax.
There’s no doubt that 1917 was a tumultuous time, perhaps as tumultuous as 2017.
Expansions
Swirls Ice Cream on the Southwest Hill opened earlier this month with a new addition on the back end, but Friday marked the debut of its Lethbridge location (1701 Mayor Magrath Dr. S.).
A look ahead
The city’s corporate services committee meets Tuesday to discuss mill rates for the 2017 tax year, as well as the rate for City Centre Development Agency stakeholders.
A press conference is planned for Monday in Edmonton to lay out proposed changes to the Municipal Government Act, which have been discussed for a couple years.
100 years ago
“British Again Smash Hun Line,” read the massive headline atop the Medicine Hat News the April 9, 1917, noting the beginning of the Battle of Vimy ridge.
In Medicine Hat, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman and Brakemen unveiled the Honour Roll of their members who had joined the armed forces.
A marriage celebration at Hilda was broken up by police after the groom failed to pay $5 towards a chivaree and was beaten unconscious with a horse yoke.
Samuel Felton, president of the Chicago Great Western Rail Line, stated that the automobile posed great risk not only in passenger trade, but also in freight should the continent’s road system be improved.
In an editorial lauding the introduction of the Dower Act, prohibiting husbands from selling real property without the knowledge of their spouse:
“That the rights of women folk in Alberta are receiving additional recognition every year from the Sifton Administration is a pleasing thing to note, but it would be a misjudging of the women in this province to hold the view that just because they live in a province of broad minded men, they have no thought for the women not so favoured.
“The News would urge that our women undertake to spread this particular gospel to other provinces.”