The Pincher Creek and District Historical Society
P.O. Box 1226
Pincher Creek, Alberta
T0K-1W0
(403) 627-3684
Email: fswuth.kbpv@gmail.com
JOIN US IN RECORDING THE EXCITING HISTORY
OF THE PINCHER CREEK AREA:
PRAIRIE GRASS TO MOUNTAIN PASS
Please join us in an exciting project to record the exciting pioneer history of the Pincher Creek area!
We are now updating our local history book entitled Prairie Grass To Mountain Pass, a local historical classic originally published by the Pincher Creek & District Historical Society back in 1974. The book, most recently in its third edition, has been long out of print. Seizing the opportunity to expand this important historical work we also are taking it to the public in terms of historical contributions & general sales. This is your invitation to record the history of your pioneer family from the Pincher Creek area & submit it for inclusion in our upcoming fourth edition.
This innovative local history book project will see our work expanded into two volumes. Volume One will be an updated version of the existing volume of Prairie Grass To Mountain Pass, and will encompass those pioneer families or those commercial, agricultural, logging, or coal mining enterprises who settled or were established in the Pincher Creek area between the settlement’s establishment in 1878 & the pre-World War one boom year of 1910. Geographically, the book covers the town of Pincher Creek, the villages, hamlets & settlements of Beaver Mines, Burmis, Cowley, Fishburn, Lundbreck, Mountain Mill, Pincher Station (formerly Pincher City), and Twin Butte plus all forty one rural school districts that now make up the Municipal District of Pincher Creek No. 9. Further rural areas including the southern reaches of the Porcupine Hills, the Castle River drainage in the mountains to the west, and parts of Waterton Lakes National Park to the south also are included. If your family is a pioneer one from these districts, we would like to hear from you. Families who have been included in the previous editions of our local history are encouraged to update those histories not only for the pioneer portions but for the 35 years since the book was first published. For those families who were accidently missed in the previous works, we look forward to including you this time around. Please contact us. Three page articles accompanied by old photos would be ideal. Family histories should emphasize their chronicles in the Pincher Creek area although their ancestries & where they moved to after their local stays are welcome. Factual data of pioneers’ names and dates of births, marriages, deaths & of when they moved to the local area can provide the framework for your history but please include those intriguing stories from the oral traditions of your families, tales that are bound to catch the interest of the readers. Stories can highlight the past work, church, & community activities of your family. Pioneer conditions & anecdotes can be chronicled.
This time around, we also will be embarking upon a second volume for Prairie Grass To Mountain Pass. Volume two will include those frontier families, ranches, & businesses which were established in our area between 1911 & the end of the Second World War in 1945. Again, we are looking for three page articles chronicling your genealogy in this area. Please bring your stories right up to the present time, and tell historical tales that will keep the reader reading, informed, & entertained. Archival photos illustrating that history are most welcome. As in the previous volume, pioneers connected with the ranching, lumbering, coal mining or commercial histories of the Pincher Creek area are encouraged to submit articles on those operations. We are attempting to make our history book as diversified & comprehensive as possible.
The deadlines for submissions are Saturday, 01st August 2009 for the first volume, and early 2010 for the second. Plans are to have the volumes completed in 2010 & 2011. For those persons wishing to pre-order these volumes, down payments of $20 per volume will hold your copy when it is printed. Cheques can be made payable to the Pincher Creek & District Historical Society. Although we do not know the final costs of the two-volume set, we are endeavouring to keep the purchase price as reasonable as possible. The Pincher Creek & District Historical Society has received a grant from the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation to assist with the research component of this project.
Articles can be e-mailed to us at fswuth.kbpv@gmail.com, mailed via Canada Post, couriered in with private companies, or dropped off at the front desk of the Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village. Our contact person for this project is our Curator, Farley Wuth. We also will be pleased to help you with the historical research or writing stages of your articles should you wish; we have an extensive archives here. For more information or should you have any questions in regards to this project, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Step back into the frontiers of local history! Please join us in preserving the vibrant history of this unique southwestern corner of the Canadian Prairies!
FSW C.C. Wednesday, 11th March 2009.
Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village
