Skip to content

Looking Back: Bickering over $60 cost of a fire alarm

Our community’s history, as recorded in the files of the Langley Advance.
12605142_web1_170525-LAD-M-lookback

Eighty Years Ago

June 30, 1938

• A year after local merchants collected $80 for a fire siren, the warning system was slated to be installed. B.C. Telephone Co. wanted $60 for the installation, but council had been willing to pay only $30. The phone company finally agreed to forego a portion of its fee.

Seventy Years Ago

July 1, 1948

• Zoning for Langley Prairie was approved at a public hearing at Municipal Hall.

Canada’s parliament approved $75,000 for the construction of a new post office in Langley. It was to be built at the corner of Topping Road (204th Street) and Douglas Crescent.

Sixty Years Ago

July 3, 1958

• Langley Board of Trade supported a Langley City water system bylaw.

Fort Langley’s celebration of B.C. centennary began with a colourful ceremony at Derby Townsite. Included were a reenactment of Simon Fraser’s arrival by canoe, and a flag-raising with an honour guard from the Royal Canadian Engineers.

• Langley’s cricket team had won eight straight matches.

Fifty Years Ago

July 4, 1968

• Lower Fraser Valley SPCA headquarters were transferred from Whalley to Langley. A new building was put up in the Jorgenson gravel pit off Mitchell Road (93rd Avenue) in West Langley.

• Langley’s 15-year-old Debbie Brill was the youngest athlete named to the Canadian athletic team to compete in Europe. She earned her spot on the team by jumping 5’4”, tying for first place with an 18-year-old Saskatchewan girl at a meet in Toronto. Both girls made the team.

Forty Years Ago

July 5, 1978

• Langley Mall Super Valu manager Lloyd Bellamy won $40,000 in the Irish Sweepstakes.

Thirty Years Ago

June 29, 1988

• A second backyard swimming pool tragedy claimed the life of a three-year-old. The fourth boy under the age of four to have died in Langley within eight weeks, he was found in his family’s pool.

• A Parks Canada archaeologist uncovered what was likely a 100-year-old privy, including a number of interesting artifacts, while digging inside the west palisade of Fort Langley.

The trial of a Langley man accused of the shooting death of his wife continued in B.C. Supreme Court.

Twenty Years Ago

July 3, 1998

• A vehicle was annihilated when it rammed into a moving train at 194th Street and 56th Avenue. Police said it was “miraculous” that the car’s driver suffered only minor injuries.

• Thousands celebrated Canada Day at Fort Langley National Historic Site.

• Langley City Mayor Marlene Grinnell was appointed to the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority board.