Eighty Years Ago
September 29, 1938
• Teachers and students at Murrayville School installed a radio with a loudspeaker and awaited commencement of official school programs.
• Marjorie Smith of Milner won the Reid Cup for grand aggregate winner in dancing at the Surrey Fair.
Seventy Years Ago
September 30, 1948
• Langley taxpayers turned down a $130,000 culvert loan bylaw, 711 votes to 359. About 20 per cent of property owners had voted. Council suggested taking the referendum back to the public during the civic elections in December.
• Voters from Langley Prairie, Murrayville, and Milner approved the $15,000 Langley Prairie Fire Zone Bylaw, 171 votes to 61.
Sixty Years Ago
September 25, 1958
• Burglars struck the third time in 10 days, this time hitting Ward & Tout Jewellers for $3,000 in watchers, lighters, and pen and pencil sets. Entry was gained by breaking through the wall of the adjacent barbershop.
• Burglars made a bold, daylight raid on the Langley Credit Union while its manager was having lunch, netting about $30 in cash and a few uncashable cheques.
Fifty Years Ago
September 26, 1968
• The provincial government allowed eight Lower Mainland municipalities to hold a vote on whether or not a regional college should be instituted.
• Jack Urquhart, manager of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, was installed as president of the Langley Chamber of Commerce.
• A deal was being negotiated to provide West Langley School with water from a nearby property owner, at $25 per month. The school board was already paying • Langley City $23.99 to supply Langley Central School with water, and $11.33 for Langley Prairie School. Aldergrove Elementary was getting its water from the Aldergrove system for $9.23.
Forty Years Ago
September 27, 1978
• Artificial waves were at the heart of a new indoor swimming pool proposal for Langley.
• Some Willoughby residents wanted water, while others already on the system wanted out.
• The new Willowbrook Mall started taking physical shape.
• With the threat of a postal strike looming, Langley’s 2,000 Unemployment Insurance recipients were advised they could pick up their cheques at the Canada Manpower office.
Thirty Years Ago
September 28, 1988
• Thieves made off with $600 that had been raised to help Heather Van Egdom, and six-year-old girl who had been paralysed in a car crash earlier in the year.
• A wing that would double Langley Memorial Hospital’s size was about to be opened.
• School board chair Marlene Grinnell and Trustee Chris Petipas announced they would run for re-election in November.
Twenty Years Ago
September 29, 1998
• A local man and woman were killed in two separate car crashes in Langley over the weekend.
• A Langley landmark hotel re-opened its doors, after decades of other uses and dereliction. Sharon and Wally Martin restored the Traveller’s Hotel, originally built in Murrayville in 1887, and opened it as a bed-and-breakfast.
• Four more arrests were made in connection with the murder of a Langley woman. Among the first three arrested were her husband and stepson.
• With Langley Township Council finally ready to give the nod to the Vicwood development proposal, which would create 157 homes and a golf course at 200th Street and Zero Avenue, the developers backed down, citing a poor economic climate in B.C.