by Franklin Lloyd Foster, Ph.D.
Growing up in the Lloydminster district, and then becoming a professional historian, combined to facilitate my interest in the history of Lloydminster. So, I, and a few others were rather disappointed when the 90th anniversary of Lloydminster's founding was marked by a somewhat faux wagon train, and little else. We soon met and determined that the upcoming centennial in 2003 (then more than 8 years away) would be marked more formally and elaborately as befitted the community and the occasion.
Along the way, I had become interested in web sites and had already built two or three. (Not too many people were doing this in the mid to late 1990's). As we progressed toward the Centennial, the idea of a "history book" about Lloydminster came more and more to the fore. I became very much involved in that project, and eventually produced a "coffee table style" volume called Bordering on Greatness: A History of Lloydminster's First Century. This project confirmed what I already knew, that the constraints of space and money involved in publishing a print volume meant that most of the potential content had to be "left on the cutting room floor". [Despite how intriguing everyone's grandparents' stories were.] As well, once a print volume was produced, it was stuck in time. It could not be corrected, or expanded or improved.
However, a web site didn't have these limitations. It could be expanded virtually endlessly at relatively little cost. It could be revised promptly as necessary, and it could include a broader range of media. So the idea of a "companion web site" [the term was unknown then] made a lot of sense to me and I created www.lloydminster.net for that purpose. However, very few other people seemed to "get it". For most, web sites were [and to a remarkable degree still are] regarded as "those new fangled things that we don't know much about and can't see how they would be better than those vast collections of unverified family recollections which we think of as "history"."]
Anyway [as the saying goes] I have kept plugging along as time permitted, adding a few things here and there, to try and capture and celebrate Lloydminster's history. It is far short of what it could and should be but I still think it is the best available means of achieving those objectives. Fortunately I am not doing it for the money or the recognition because there has been little of either. I do it because I think it is the right thing to do.
For more about the Bordering on Greatness
project and those involved in its production -
click here
There are a very few copies left - to purchase one -
go here
For some notes on various individuals relevant to Lloydminster's history - click here
To inquire about submitting information, photos,
etc. that might be relevant -
send e-mail to franklin [at] fosterlearning [dot] com
If you would like to contribute $19.03 to support this web site, or just for the heck of it
This was one of our many efforts to educate people (especially our City officials) that we had a history and that the Centennial was a big deal. The significance was that on the morning of Sunday, May 10, 1903 Isaac Barr himself raised a red ensign over the headquarters camp that would soon be Lloydminster. [He had thought it might be Barrville.] In 1969, Isaac`s son, William Barr, presented this SAME flag - not just one like it, but the actual flag that Isaac had raised, to City officials when he visited here. Lloydminster officials lost it, but a replica was made and this is the one pictured above, on May 10, 2003. We thought this was a neat tie in to the history, to commemorate the actual DAY that could be considered the founding of Lloydminster. I'm not sure everyone "got it" and I notice May 10 did not catch on as "founding day", but we tried.
For more photo's of the Barr family, and the flag, click here