Lethbridge Holiday Trailers Ltd.

In 1964, a new trailer manufacturing businesses set up—Lethbridge Holiday Trailers Ltd. The City of Lethbridge was excited about this new industrial business, with the City's Industrial Coordinator, Elmer Ferguson, saying, "With mobile home manufacturers already well-established in Lethbridge, Fort Macleod, Claresholm and Vulcan, southern Alberta is making a bid to become the centre of trailer manufacturing in western Canada."

The excitement of the city was partly for increased economic growth and diversity in the industrial sector. The excitement was also about being able to provide Canadian manufacturers with local parts that they were then importing mostly from the United States. These were parts like windows, screens, refrigerators, stoves, axles and trailer hitches. "There's no reason why some of these components could not be manufactured right here in southern Alberta," said Ferguson.

Four months after it opened, Holiday Trailers was heralded as "one of the busiest assembly lines in the city's industrial picture these days." Holiday Trailers had a workforce of 25 individuals building trailers. Secretary Treasurer of the company, Richard Rempel, said that "there has been a tremendous demand for our product."

While Holiday Trailers are no longer being manufactured, they are still being found and cared for. In July 2019, the Galt's Archives received an inquiry about the history of Holiday Trailers Ltd. by an individual who found one of their trailers in a field in British Columbia. They were looking for information on the company to help their efforts to restore this vintage trailer to operation.

Lethbridge industry has and continues to have wide reaching impacts on the country. To find out more about the industrial history of Lethbridge, you can look through our Galt’s archival holdings at www.galtmuseum.com/research.

ArticleGraham RuttanAugust 20, 2019Galt Museum & ArchivesTrailers, Manufacturing, Indutrial, Lethbridge, Economy, Holiday TrailerComment