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New exhibits call
Historical Village home
reprinted from Innisfail Province (Michaela Ludwig) May 10, 2010
Two new exhibits at the
Innisfail Historical Village tell more about Innisfail's founding
years.
As a 40-year anniversary project, the Innisfail and District
Historical Society set about restoring the Village's Bowden CP Rail
station. And through the doors of that old station, visitors will
find several displays depicting Innisfail in its early years and
what the railroad meant to central Alberta. Scaled-down model trains
chug along the tracks and scenes of what Innisfail would have looked
like in 1892, when the tracks were first laid; 1910, a time of
considerable growth for the town; and 1960, the end of the steam
era, are all displayed.
There are also cases of CPR artifacts in the room.
Next to the Role of the Railroad exhibit sits a familiar scene,
straight out of Donna Chadwick's memory.
Chadwick's grandfather, G.W. West, was Innisfail's first storekeeper
and his shop is also set up in the railroad station.
West, originally from Prince Edward Island, was looking for a new
career and rode a construction train to the end of the line back in
1891. The end of the line happened to be Innisfail, or Poplar Grove
as it was known back then. West opened his store here on July 1,
1891, eventually getting into hardware, lumber, furs, meat and
grain.
Chadwick spent many years in that store while she was growing up,
first when her grandfather owned it and then when her father, Frank,
owned the store.
The store served the Town of Innisfail for 77 straight years -- the
only family-owned store in western Canada to have survived that
long, said Chadwick.
Many of the artifacts that now line the walls of the exhibits came
from Chadwick's home, where she had been storing them after the old
store was demolished.
The area where the station agent and his family would have stayed
has also been restored, complete with equipment the station agent
would have used in the early 1900s.
Workers from the Bowden Institution Work Release Program and local
handyman Rob Vander Velden contributed a lot of time and effort to
the restoration -- the workers put up new drywall and painted inside
the station and Vander Velden put together all of the tiny pieces
for the model rail exhibit.
The Village will be hosting its annual grand opening on May 22 and
guests can come out for a pancake breakfast, check out a few antique
cars and tour the new exhibits.
The
Innisfail Historical Village Model Rail Exhibit
News article:
'Sleeper' village grand opening set
(Red Deer Advocate May 2010)
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