Do these look like mischievious boys?  Way back in the day, they were!  Our teachers spent three hours with these fine gentlemen reminiscing about the good old days in Coalhurst.  Andy Veres, Lawrence Watmough and Tom Nicol took them on a history walk (but they drove!) and shared so many stories about what it was like here in the 1930’s and 1940’s.  They seemed to remember who lived where when and who moved in after they left but before the person living there now!

It sounds like being a kid in Coalhurst was a lot of fun for these long time residents.  Which one do you think…

• was involved in an incident where an outhouse was placed on the roof of the high school?

• “borrowed” a large horse drawn sleigh, dragged it to the very top of the slag heap and after sending an unsupecting test pilot down the in it, hopped in and rode it down himself before returning it?

• rode 6 or 7 boys to a horse which was also “borrowed” to a large garden to “borrow” some carrots to feed the “borrowed” horse?

• has knowledge of a certain individual who broke his arm not once but TWICE riding a horse this way and participated in the conspiracy of covering up how the injury occurred?

• caught the train into Lethbridge for 25 cents, spent the afternoon at the movies and jumped a freighter home?

• climbed the water tower to collect bird eggs and then initiated an egg fight with friends?

• poured water down gopher holes and then snared the poor critters when they tried to escape?

• chased hunks of coal cascading down the slag heap after being dumped from the train car, yelling “That big one is mine!”?

• squished himself in a car tire or hopped on a scrap car fender and catapulted down the slag heap at high rates of speed in the winter, many times?

We are going to go on our own version of the history walk later this month.  We plan to visit the spot where the CP Rail line had a turn off that went to mine, the remnants of the train bridge that passed over the canal just behind our school, the rock in Imperial Meadows Park that marks the location of the Coalhurst Mine, the field where the slap heap once towered 200 feet above ground, the site of the old low and high schools and mainstreet where Aunt Doty’s store, a bank and even a hotel were once located.  Give us a call if you want to come along and share some of your own stories!