25 YEARS AGO (1987)
• Low interest rates and stable real estate prices have sent people in Red Deer on a house-buying spree.
“It’s phenomenal, really,; we’re basically out of lots in the city,” said Red Deer bylaw and inspections manager Ryan Strader.
Residential sales here are up 8.9 per cent for the first four months of 1986, according to statistics released by the Red Deer and District Real Estate Board. This year 220 homes were bought from January to the end of April, compared to 202 homes for the same period last year. Nearly 38 per cent of the homes are priced below $70,000 — partly because of an increase in duplex and townhouse sales, said a board spokesman.
• A stock car racetrack proposed for the northern edge of the city hit a brick wall Wednesday when it was rejected by the Red Deer Development Appeal Board.
The $30,000 development, earmarked for the north side of Hwy 11, ran out of gas when 10 concerned residents from nearby Central Park Subdivision attended the hearing to protest. Dale Woods presented a protest petition at the 2½ hour hearing signed by 20 of 24 homeowners. Their main concerns were the potential for noise, garbage and traffic pollution if the track was built about 1.2 km south of Central Park.
50 YEARS AGO (1962)
• Another attractive eight-suite unit at the Twilight Cottages was opened in an official ceremony under a warm May sun Wednesday afternoon and high tribute was paid to the Kiwanis Club of Red Deer and the community support that made the project possible.
The new cottage has been named “The McCarragher Cottage,” in memory of the late George McCarragher who made a substantial bequest to the Foundation in his will. Part of the proceeds was used to launch the latest project.
The unit brings to five the number of cottages which are now forming a hollow square in the vicinity of the lodge.
• A fund-raising campaign is to be launched here immediately to help finance the work of the Canadian Peace Research Institute, an open meeting of approximately 30 men and women in the South School Friday evening having agreed to support that organization.
The course of action was agreed upon after the meeting had been addressed by Dr. D. B. Scott, professor of physics at the University of Alberta, on the need for preventing nuclear warfare and searching for world peace.
90 YEARS AGO( 1922)
• All the world and his wife will be at the exhibition grounds on the May 24th weekend, when the big spring event of Red Deer’s athletic year will be pulled off.
The G.W.V.A. Have arranged a fine program of sports, with events to suit every taste.
The program included all the foot races usual in an athletic meet, relay race, standing and running jumps, hop-step-and-jump, pole vaulting, putting the shot, tug-of-war, Militia events, mounted and dismounted, and juvenile events for the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. Get you entries early.
The Victoria Day dance in the Armouries is usually one of the best of season, and this year should be no exception to the rule.
• One of the biggest stills ever discovered in this part of the province was unearthed last Monday night by member of the local Division of A. P. Police in a dug-out on a coulee running into the Red Deer river about 25 miles northeast of the city when Clyde Lanway and Wm. Lawton were caught redhanded in the act of moonshining and taken into custody by the A.P.P.
These parties have been under suspicion by the police since last November and Lanway’s house searched on several occasions, but without the Police being able to discover any liquor as it would now appear care being taken to never have any stored on the premises.