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North Red Deer to mark centennial

The wealthy people lived on the hill overlooking a bustling new industries. Workers lived on the river flats down below.
C01_ShirleyHocken
Longtime Riverside Meadows resident Shirley Hocken keeps alive the history of the village of North Red Deer

The wealthy people lived on the hill overlooking a bustling new industries. Workers lived on the river flats down below. Their houses were built on large lots, some as big as the five-acre site at the west side, where local historian Shirley Hocken’s parents, Fred and Ethel Perlick, had raised livestock and vegetables to help feed themselves and their neighbours.

Hocken, who has lived in North Red Deer for all but three of her 68 years, still remembers struggling up a long, steep hill to get home from the North School to the family farm, which occupied a portion of the hill at what is now Oriole Park. The road she used to climb on what is now 60th street has been tamed significantly from earlier times, when it rose past the Parnells’ house toward the Perlick family farm.

There was a lover’s lane going past the farm, said Hocken. It was a pretty little stretch of dirt road with overhanging tree branches and, yes, there were times when young couples went there to spoon.

On Thursday, the former Village of North Red Deer celebrates the 100th anniversary of receiving news that the province would approve its request to be incorporated. A ministerial order approving the incorporation was passed on July 18, 1911.

Founded in 1894, the hamlet had covered a large block of real estate on the north side of the Red Deer River, an immediate neighbour to the booming community of Red Deer, said Hocken.

Straddling the Calgary and Edmonton Trail and with railway track at its core, North Red Deer was a bustling centre of commerce, including the Blue Ribbon Store that stood on the north side of the river, just west of what is now the southbound lane of Gaetz Ave.

From the start, North Red Deer had been an industrial centre, including sawmills and a tannery, said Hocken.

But it lacked the one thing that people in the other Red Deer could take for granted — access to sewer and water.

Although some residents were opposed, North Red Deer’s citizen sought for another change in status during the mid-1940s. They wanted to be incorporated into the City of Red Deer so they could take advantage of the services available to their neighbours across the river.

There would be other changes, including the need to change the names of the streets from romantic names like Cherry and Spruce to a numbered system matching the city’s system.

As the city grew around it, the name North Red Deer took on a new meaning, Hocken said from her kitchen on Saturday.

Parts of North Red Deer had been incorporated into Highland Green and Oriole Park. People started to understand North Red Deer as everything north of the river, while tagging the remains of the village, the area along the river and below the embankment, with a different moniker.

People called it Lower Fairview, even though that was never its proper name. Along with that came some uncomfortable connotations about the area, said Hocken.

In 2000, when the city embarked on an area redevelopment plan in the wake of relocating the Canadian Pacific Railway, the community chose a new name.

Now called Riverside Meadows, the little village that grew is in the midst of recreating itself yet again, said Hocken.

She sees housing becoming more dense with more multi-family development in key areas along with commercial development closer to Gaetz Avenue and the river.

Being so close to the city centre is a distinct advantage for people who want to walk to work or to shop, she said.

Celebrations for North Red Deer’s 100th Anniversary will be held at the North Cottage and Koinonia Christian School on the afternoon of Aug. 27.

bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com