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Big Valley’s Industries in 1920

by Sean

What would you do for a job in the 1920’s if you lived in Big Valley? Big Valley was huge at one time and for a lot of people it would need a lot of businesses.

The town of Big Valley was a railway town. It was chosen as a terminal base for the C.N.R.. In the town there was a post office, a hotel called the Frontenac Hotel, and the Royal Bank of Canada even set up a bank in Big Valley. There were laundry mats, and stores of all kinds including a General Store and Brown’s Men’s Wear. There was a garage, a train station, 3 Elevators, a train yard, a black smith shop, and Jimmy Jock Restaurant.

In the town of Big Valley, there were little industries but they would not even exist if it were not for the bigger industries such as coal mining and the railway. Big Valley was a mining town and the railway ran through it to get coal. There were three mines and all were rich. In the railway yard there was a round house, a turntable, a water tower and a coal pit. On Main Street there were wooden sidewalks and all the businesses helped to keep them in tact. Since Big Valley was so big, it was also a destination for farmers to bring their wheat, barley, and oats.

What would you do for a job in the 1920`s if you lived in Big Valley? I, myself, would like to be an owner of a store or a train engineer because these jobs paid well.

Industries of 2004

by Zach

Big Valley industries for 2004 are oil, gas and farming and ranching. My family is in the business of ranching and when my dad works he does sort of work for the oil field. He drives trucks.

Ranches in Alberta mostly have cows, but there are a few that have horses and other animals like sheep and pigs. Today’s technology has a great effect on farming in good and bad ways. The good thing is that we have bigger machinery so that we can do bigger work. The bad thing is that we use up material from the earth and we use the earth’s energy.

People that work in the oil field drive little crew cab trucks because they are easy to get around those great big oil fields. Oil that is pumped out of the ground is hauled in these big trailers that are called tankers. The trucks that you see pulling the oil tankers are your big semi trucks. They can haul 1 to 2 tons of oil. Trottier trucking is one of Big Valley’s biggest ways of hauling oil.

Oil and gas are big commodities in today’s life. People need to heat their homes, and people use some types of oil and gas to put in their cars, trucks and machinery.