Vegreville Observer folds after 109 years
Feisty weekly once took on Ku Klux Klan
In 1906, a young teacher, stone deaf from a recent illness, arrived in Vegreville, looking for a new career.
A.L. Horton took one look at the brand new Vegreville Observer, saw opportunity in the bustling town of 344 people, bought the business and soon put the paper — and himself — at the centre of the town’s life and Alberta history.
In his fearless editorials, Horton took on the Ku Klux Klan in eastern Alberta in the late 1920s, and later vigorously joined the battle against Bible Bill Aberhart’s attempt to muzzle the press.
He declared in his first edition that “the politics of the Observer under my control will be Liberal; I preserve my right, of course, to criticize any act of the Liberal Party” — and anyone else he disagreed with.
In the old tradition of feisty weeklies, Horton, a man of progressive views and dedicated to the community, put the Observer at the forefront in the new province.
In its early days, a subscription cost a dollar a year and A.L., as he was known about town, was happy to take payment in butter, vegetables, tiny livestock (goats in particular) and feed for the animals, recalled Charlotte Stuparek, 87, the youngest of Horton’s eight children, who now lives in Sherwood Park.
In 1907, raw land was selling for $15 an acre and the Vegreville creamery vowed to pay “the highest market prices” to its suppliers, according to ads in the Observer.
After 109 years, the Vegreville Observer died this spring, a victim of competition with the much larger, more business oriented, Vegreville News Advertiser.
Dan Beaudett, who owned both publications in recent years, said the Observer hadn’t made money for a few years and it was a good time to cut his losses.
The economic times are uncertain and the New Democratic government will inevitably be “antibusiness,” said Beaudette, adding “that’s what a lot of businesses here think.”
But a connection to Alberta’s history died with the paper’s demise, says Stuparek.
Her father — widely read, engaging and at the centre of politics — always had a lot to say and carried a notebook with him for those occasions when lip reading failed him, she said.
“The house was full of kids but he heard none of our bickering,” said Stuparek, who made many trips to the library to fetch her father books.
Lois Horton, 90, married the old man’s youngest son, Wilfrid, who carried on with the paper for decades after A.L. died.
She remembers A.L. Horton, in his three-piece suits, as “friendly, interesting and unpretentious, and respected by everyone town. “I recall one time at a political meeting when the politician got up to speak, he got up to leave, announcing it was one advantage of his disability.”
Eager to help build the growing community, Horton sat on the school board for 32 years (a local school bears his name) and joined sports organizations.
But old-fashioned newspapering was the centre of his life and, in the ethic of the day, Horton did not shy from controversy.
In 1936, the Edmonton Journal led the charge against Aberhart’s anti-press bill, a battle that eventually brought a Pulitzer Prize to the Edmonton daily, the first awarded outside the U.S.
Aberhart’s Accurate News and Information Act would force newspapers to print government press releases verbatim, and also force journalists to reveal their sources. Newspapers refusing to comply would be suspended.
The Vegreville Observer was quick to join the Journal and along with many weeklies, the Observer was also recognized by Pulitzer with a certificate.
Horton remained undeterred when the anti-press bill passed on Oct. 6, 1937: “One cannot conceive of anything more calculated to bring newspapers under control than this Act. It is a body blow to freedom of the press,” he wrote. “The Observer intends to keep on being critical, when and if criticism appears necessary.”
He also warned, if freedom of the press is curtailed, “how long will it be before similar action will be taken with freedom of speech, freedom of assembly?”
A year later, the bill was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada.
It was his fierce battle against the KKK with its anti-Catholic and white supremacist views that brought Horton into national prominence and earned him a kidnapping threat.
“A.L. Horton made the most concerted effort by an Alberta newspaper man to stop the Klan at the border…,” Peter Beargen wrote in his book, The Ku Klux Klan in Central Alberta.
In July 1929, the Klan shocked rural communities with a midnight cross burning near Vermilion.
Horton went on the attack with many editorials that summer and fall urging that the Klan, at one time headquartered in Edmonton, be sent packing.
In 1933, Horton received a threatening note demanding $3,600 or his son Ted would be kidnapped.
Horton made light of the incident in a brief article, noting he has “three or four more sons he could toss in for good measure and will even offer a fine young nanny goat as a premium.”
Horton’s personal life had its setbacks. He went deaf in his mid-20s after a bout of flu. In 1912, his wife of five years died shortly after giving birth to their third child. He married again and had five more children.
A.L. Horton died in 1958 at 82. He inspired a younger generation of journalists. Son Wilfrid Laurier Horton (known as Wufty) started helping out in the newspaper offices at the age of nine and, after graduating from high school, he took over the business. He sold it in 1985.
Eldest son Ted went to Yellowknife to establish the News of the North weekly newspaper.
Ted’s son Marc Horton followed those journalistic footsteps with an illustrious career at the Edmonton Journal where he was perhaps best known for cogent sports writing and insightful movie reviews.
For his lifetime of work, A.L. Horton earned the respect of Vegreville.
“In short this man was an outstanding credit to the town, the province and to the country,” the Observer wrote in 1991, looking back on Horton’s career.
“A.L. Horton made the most concerted effort by an Alberta newspaper man to stop the Klan at the border …”
PETER BEARGEN