100 Years of Community Bands in Red Deer

The following is a speech given by Michael Dawe, Archivist at the Red Deer Museum and Archives, at the Red Deer Community Band Society’s Spring Celebration Concert on April 28, 2002.

Tonight is a night to enjoy music and to congratulate the Red Deer Community Band Society on its 33 continuous years of activity
and accomplishment. However, tonight also marks the 100th anniversary of community bands in Red Deer.

It was in April 1902 that Canon Joshua Hinchliffe, the local Anglican minister and H.G. Stone, the local undertaker, proposed the
formation of a Citizen’s Band. Red Deer’s newly formed Town Council greeted the proposal enthusiastically and voted $50 to
purchase band instruments. This was the first public grant to be made in Red Deer’s history. Also, in case people think that $50 was a modest sum of money, in those days, $2 per day was considered a pretty good wage. Moreover, about the same time, Town Council disciplined the Town’s secretary-treasurer for his extravagance of spending 10 cents on a fountain pen and ordered him to pay this amount out of his own pocket.

The Red Deer Citizen’s Band quickly took off and soon had more than twenty members. As a point of interest, the photographs of that first band seem to indicate that among the criteria for joining the band was not only the ability to play a musical instrument, but also,
to sport either a beard or a moustache as every single band member had one. As you may have guessed, there were no women in the
band in those days.

The new band did so well that next year Town Council doubled the grant to $100, thereby allowing the band to buy impressive new
uniforms. Following the success of an open air concert on Christmas Day 1903 on what is now City Hall Park, Town Council decided
to build a bandstand on the square for future concerts.

The Citizen’s Band flourished over the next several years. Not only did they give annual Christmas Day concerts in City Hall Park,
they also performed regularly either outdoors in the park in the summer time or else in the local Lyric and Empress Theatres at other
times of the year.

The band became a key feature at the community’s major events and celebrations. They played for the Governor General, the Prime
Minister and the Premier of Alberta at the C.P.R. Station on the occasion of the creation of the Province of Alberta in 1905 and were
part of the attempts by Red Deer to persuade the new M.L.A.’s to make Red Deer the capital city of Alberta at a lavish banquet in
1906. It was not the fault of the band, by the way, that the banquet went on until quarter to five in the morning or that the sleep
deprived M.L.A.’s later decided to locate the capital city in Edmonton.

Other major events in which the band played a key role were the visits of two other Prime Ministers, Sir Wilfrid Laurier to Red Deer
in 1910, the visit of Sir Robert Borden in 1911, at the Patriotic Rallies at the start of the First World War in 1914, and the widespread
community celebrations when the War finally ended in 1918.

City Council continued to provide the Band with funds for instruments and uniforms. After the original bandshell was moved to the
C.P.R. station park on the west end of Ross Street, the City built a new larger bandstand in the middle of City Hall Park in 1917.
However, the post war years were tough years financially for both the City and the Band, which was renamed the Veterans and
Citizens’ Band following the War. By the mid 1920’s the band was barely hanging on. Relief came, in 1925, when the newly formed
Red Deer Elks Club agreed to take on sponsorship and the band was soon flourishing once more. By the late 1920’s, there were
regular Sunday night concerts in the Crescent Theatre on Ross Street.

The Great Depression of the 1930’s brought new economic hard times and the band really struggled to keep going. In the early 1940’s, at the start of the Second World War, the military band at the new A-20 Army Camp, which was built north of 55th Street, took on the
role as Red Deer’s community band.
One of the regular assignments of the A-20 Camp band happened every year on the birthday of the Lieutenant Colonel. A noted
eccentric, he insisted that the band follow him around all day and break out into lusty renditions of Happy Birthday whenever he felt it
was appropriate.

The Community Band hit a real lull after the Second World War and there was little or no activity throughout the 1950’s. In 1961, the
Red Deer Optimist Club formed a community trumpet and drum band and two years later, the Elks Club restarted a junior concert
band. In 1966, the Department of National Defence disbanded the KOC Regiment Band, which had acted as the senior band in Red
Deer for a number of years. However, a number of ex-bandsmen along with Ron Dale, who was then sitting on Red Deer City
Council, began pushing for the creation of a new Community Band Society.

In 1968, City Council endorsed the creation of such a band society. In 1969, the Red Deer Community Band Society was formally
incorporated with both a senior Monday night adult band and a junior band, which was ultimately to become known as the Red Deer Royals Concert and Marching Show Band.
The first director was Vic Wright of Ponoka, but he was followed shortly thereafter by Dick Campion in 1971.

The Band Society faced a number of setbacks in its first years. A number of instruments and equipment were destroyed when the Red Deer Central School, The Castle, burned to the ground due to arson. However subsequently, the Band has set a truly outstanding
record of activity and accomplishment.

- Michael Dawe, Archivist, City of Red Deer