100 Years Back: New Year’s in Lethbridge
Seven golfers at Henderson Lake Golf Course, 1917.
Image courtesy Galt Museum & Archives, P19754361000
New Year’s Eve celebrations date back much further than this century— much further, in fact, than Canada as we know it! With that in mind, we can venture through archived issues of the Lethbridge Herald for glimpses of what this tradition may have looked like a hundred years ago, and find out whether their years began with the same resolutions, headaches, and disgruntled-party-cleanups as our own.
While the idea of New Year’s in the Jazz Age might conjure images of flappers and Art Deco living rooms, Lethbridge’s celebrations for 1923 were reportedly quite tame, with reporters expecting the night to prove “mild, not wild.” The New Year began on a Monday, forcing the scheduled festivities to take place on a Sunday night. On top of that, Prohibition in Alberta would not end for another year (though the Herald wrote that “it could not be called a quiet New Year’s, nor a dry one...in spite of governmental restrictions, the festivities here exhibited no signs of dullness from any lack of liquid refreshments” — wisely, the writer did not elaborate on exactly how they knew that)! It was an allegedly quiet night for police forces as well, with “only one drunk at the city police station” throughout the night.
Those hoping for something fun to do, however, were not left without activities. Some residents spent the day ice skating, while “cafes and restaurants were well patronized, and a spirit of gaiety was not lacking.” Watchnight services took place at a number of local churches, and “the usual New Year’s mass” was held at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church. Meanwhile, an audience gathered for a boxing and wrestling event held at the Majestic Theatre on 5 Avenue South. Potentially the night’s most notable report described the moment the clock struck midnight:
“The New Year was ushered in Sunday night with siren calls, blowing of whistles, firing of explosives and ringing of bells. The city never hailed a New Year more noisily. Promptly at midnight the whistles of a score of mills, mines and industrial plants, joined with those of locomotives in the CPR yards proclaimed the birth of another year—1923. Terrific explosions shook the southeastern parts of the city…arousing early retirers from their peaceful Sabbath evening slumbers.”
It's hard to imagine just how loud an eventful New Year’s might have been!
Researching events and specific dates is a large part of the day-to-day work in the Galt Museum Archives. For more information, or to explore some of these records yourself, visit galtmuseum.com/research.