That little museum you didn’t know was there honours history of police

Dear editor,

In January of 2005 a volunteer museum co-ordinator moved to Medicine Hat and suggested to Chief Andy McGrogan that he would be willing to create a Police Museum for the Medicine Hat Police Service.

At the time there were only two urban museums illustrating the history of urban policing in Alberta:

One in Calgary and one in Edmonton, which unfortunately was dismantled due to budget cuts, leaving only the Calgary museum, which basically illustrates their more modern approach to policing.

Bill Blore, a former school principal in Calgary, planned to design a museum here that represented more of the changing role of policing service since the establishment of the Medicine Hat Police in 1899.

With the aid of Bruce Shepard from the Esplanade, the chemistry department at Medicine Hat College, donations from the Raymond Scherger Family, the Alfred Blore Family and added with wonderful artifacts from present and retired police officers, the small but informative museum opened its door to the general public on Oct. 14, 2005.

The museum has had visitors from the United States, Europe and many Canadian provinces over the past five years — in spite of few people realizing it exists — and is located just inside the present police station on Second

Street and Ash Avenue in SE Medicine Hat.

Before the pandemic it was open weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., but is presently closed until it is felt safe to fully open the registration area of the police station.

The museum has been called “awesome, cool, interesting, educational and neat and tidy” by its visitors. It is hoped that it can reopen soon once a visit is considered safe. Much of the museum can be seen through the windows of the police building.

As Chief Andy McGrogan supported the creation of the museum and made it an important aspect of his 12 years as chief of police, it was only appropriate in the eyes of the volunteer curator that the museum be renamed after the chief on the date of his retirement.

This is planned to occur at the end of 2020.

It was felt that such a designation should honour his four decades of service and dedication to ensuring the safety of over 62,000 Medicine Hat Citizens.

Chief McGrogan has developed a police service that will endeavour to provide a safe community for all who reside in Medicine Hat with a fair, compassionate response to their needs fostering fairmindedness, effective community police service. The chief has shown compassion and concern not only for his own officers but for all the citizens of the city and has developed an effective and cordial operating staff of well-trained police officers.

With appreciation and respect for Chief Andy McGrogan,