About 30 people came out to Centennial Park Wednesday night (Nov. 21) to watch as the latest Kiwanis Christmas Village building replica was unveiled.
As was reported earlier in the Albertan, this new building replica is of the AGT building.
It’s sponsored by Alison Caputo of Advanced Telecom, and was created by local artist Anne Burchill with the help of many other individuals, including Les Krause who did the carpentry and Brian Thompson of the Kiwanis Club of Olds and Uptowne Olds, who helped organize the project.
Olds Fashioned Christmas committee chair Lorraine Pillar thanked all those involved in the project and gave the crowd a history of the building. She noted 2018 marks the 25th anniversary of Olds Fashioned Christmas, which includes the Kiwanis Christmas Village display.
Pillar said telephone service first came to Olds in the fall of 1903 when the Bell telephone system constructed a long distance line from Calgary to Edmonton. Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) bought all of Bell's holdings in the province on April 1, 1908.
The first agent in town was George H. Cloakey. The exchange was operated by his wife out of the building that had been Cloakey's real estate office.
In 1920, the new telephone office and exchange opened at 5038 50th St.
Frank Scott had worked as a lineman since 1914 between Crossfield and Red Deer. He was appointed manager of the Olds office.
Mamie Shannon began working for AGT as an operator in Olds in May 1914. She became chief operator in June 1920 and remained in that position until her retirement.
A new AGT exchange opened on Oct. 6, 1978 on the northwest corner of 49th Street and 51st Avenue.
As a result, the Town of Olds purchased the old AGT building and offered it to the Olds Historical Society to use as a museum. Until then, the Mountain View Museum and Archives had been in one room in the recreation centre. An addition was built onto the AGT building and the museum and archives opened in that location in 1984.
"I think the building turned out wonderfully. Our artist Anne Burchill did an amazing job and it looks just great," Pillar said after the replica was unveiled.
Burchill told the Albertan she spent about two weeks – on and off – working on the replica. She said the replica was a real challenge because of its dimensions: 12 feet wide by 10 feet tall.
However, Burchill said it's not the biggest one she's worked on. She named the Craig house replica as being another big challenge.
Burchill has painted many of the homes and buildings depicted in the Christmas Village since its inception 25 years ago.
She said another challenge was the fact that she had to work with old black and white photos, which weren't all that helpful when creating a colour replica.
"They weren't very good photos – black and white, mainly black, not much white in them," she said. "And then I had the people, the pictures of the people, so that was kind of fun."
The replica not only depicts the building but also shows Shannon and Scott standing at its entrance.
"It turned out OK. And Les Krause, he did a bit of three-dimensional work on the carpentry and that really helped," Burchill said. "It just added a lot to it. He did a great job."
During an earlier interview with the Albertan, Thompson said it's his understanding the AGT building replica is the final one to go in the village.
Pillar is not so sure.
"That's what Brian says, but we'll have to wait and see what happens," she said with a smile.
