Eighty Years Ago
September 1, 1938
• Langley’s community entry placed first in the Vancouver Exhibition.
• Farmers came to Langley to catch a glimpse of the first combine to be operated in this part of the province.
• Langley made preparations for its 46th annual fall fair.
Seventy Years Ago
September 2, 1948
• “Best in class ever shown at the Pacific Exhibition,” was the judges’ opinion of Langley’s community display. Consequently, the Dewer Shield returned to its showcase at the Langley Advance office, on behalf of the community in which the prize had spent most of its existence.
• All potato crops in the Fraser Valley were hit by late blight. Spraying and dusting proved less than totally effective.
• The first newborn at Langley’s new hospital arrived shortly after midnight on Tuesday, Aug. 31, but it was decided the youngster would not be eligible for the promised prizes – it was actually a piglet, brought to the hospital by prankster Eric Flowerdew.
• Fort Langley residents were awakened shortly after midnight, when vandals sawed down the old flagpole at the community hall. The pole, steeped in local history, just missed the hall as it fell.
Sixty Years Ago
August 28, 1958
• Overcrowding at Langley Memorial Hospital was being blamed on administration. Councillor S.T. Hogben made the charge after inspecting the hospital. Coun. Walter Jensen claimed the hospital had been operating at a dangerously high occupancy rate, and said the hospital had studied two plans for expansion. Reeve Bill Poppy called for a joint meeting between the hospital board and council to discuss expansion or construction of a new hospital.
Fifty Years Ago
September 5, 1968
• Miss Langley Laura Borsato was to receive the harvest queen crown. Leslie Horner and John Chapman, runners up from among the 11 entrants in the Miss Langley contest in the spring, were to be her princesses.
• Early reports indicated larger increases in school enrolments than had been predicted.
Forty Years Ago
August 30, 1978
• The 96th Avenue corner at Fort Langley Golf Course was being widened and realigned.
• Thetis House, a home for emotionally disturbed girls and the object of neighbourhood rejection backed by Township council legal action, had been directed to its location by the council, according to a spokesman for the Children’s Foundation, who added that his group had been invited to set up a home in Langley.
• A.C. Hope died in his 85th year, leaving behind a community service career that started on the school board in the 1930s, took him through council as both councillor and reeve (mayor), and saw him in the provincial legislature as a Conservative MLA in the Coalition government, representing the Delta riding (which included Langley)
Thirty Years Ago
August 31, 1988
• “We made the biggest mistake of our lives when we amalgamated the police force [with the Township force],” Langley City Mayor Reg Easingwood told the Langley Advance. He had written to RCMP headquarters in Vancouver, demanding to know why the five officers approved by City council in December had not been assigned to duty.
Twenty Years Ago
September 1, 1998
• A parade was held to welcome home Langley’s Little League heroes. The 11- and 12-year-old boys represented Canada in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, missing the final prize by a 3-2 extra-innings loss to Japan. Despite the loss in the finals, Langley pitcher Jeff Duda struck out 17 batters in a single game, to set a World Series record. Thousands of spectators turned out to welcome the boys home.
• The recession stepped in and succeeded where everyone else had failed. The controversial Vicwood development proposal for a golf course and 157 homes at Zero Avenue and 200th Street was put on hold, with the developers apparently waiting for a better economic climate.
• Nexus Corporation announced that it had two more major tenants for Liberty Street, a 320,000-square-foot shopping centre planned to open in 1999 in Langley City at at 200th Street and Langley Bypass. The Zone Bowling Centre and Big River Brewing Co. were to join Cineplex Odeon’s mega-theatre complex at the corner.