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Looking Back: Border officers have a beef with smugglers

The history of our community, as recorded in the files of the Langley Advance
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Eighty Years Ago

August 4, 1938

• The junior farmers’ club was denied use of a Langley school bus, after Trustee Noel Booth’s objection denied the unanimous consent required by any outside organization.

• Principal H.L. Manzer asked the school board for more accommodation and another teacher at the high school. He expected eight classes to start the fall term.

Seventy Years Ago

August 5, 1948

• Three Canadians and two Americans were arrested at the border U.S. Customs officers, in connection with smuggling of cattle from Langley into Whatcom County.

• The Lower Mainland Artificial Insemination Association announced plans to build a bull farm in Milner. The three-year-old association stocked 24 bulls of four main breeds: Jersey, Holstein, Guernsey, and Ayrshire.

Sixty Years Ago

August 7, 1958

• July precipitation had been limited to a single rainfall of 0.41 inches (1 cm), and the temperature had reached 100.3ºF (37.9ºC) on July 27. Drought conditions were deemed worse than those of 1951.

• Among the brush and grass fires that had been springing up all over Langley was a large peat-bog fire that had been burning for several weeks.

Fifty Years Ago

August 8, 1968

• Langley had had 29 new home starts in July, four more than in July of the previous year.

• Gross sewer system costs for Aldergrove were estimated at $424,566. Net costs were calculated at $330,166.

Forty Years Ago

August 9, 1978

• Aldergrove Secondary School received only temporary accreditation and was told to “clean up its act” before the Department of Education would offer approval. Langley Secondary had faced a similar edict the previous year.

Thirty Years Ago

August 3, 1988

• Police were looking for a 58-year-old woman who had disappeared with her three-year-old granddaughter.

• Hundreds of geese made an impressive display in an unscheduled flypast during the Brigade Days activities.

Twenty Years Ago

August 7, 1998

• A Willowbrook mall store was shut down for several days after a car crashed through the wall in a spectacular incident. The driver was not badly injured.

• Langley sent trucks and personnel to help out in the fire-ravaged Salmon Arm region.

• The Township’s fire department top officers were preparing to move into their new headquarters at Murrayville Fire Hall.