In honour of their 100th anniversary, Sept. 26, The Galt Museum is looking for the keys to the building, which was formerly the Galt Hospital and they are hoping you can help.
One hundred years ago on Sept. 1, 1910, Sir Wilfrid Laurier attended the grand opening of the Galt Hospital building in Lethbridge where, after some scrambling to locate the misplaced key, he opened the doors to the brick structure with the deserving fanfare.
So in honour of that fascinating tidbit of Lethbridge history, Galt Museum staff are trying to recreate that moment by hiding the “key” to the museum, somewhere in Lethbridge city limits. The lucky person who finds it officially gets to open the museum on Sept. 26, for their centennial celebrations.
“It was never written about in the Lethbridge Herald because we read all of the articles, but oral history tells us they misplaced the key,” said Galt Museum special projects co-ordinator Lori Harasem, adding to help, they will be issuing one clue per week, every Tuesday through Facebook, Twitter, their website and local media.
The first person to find the key will be the person to open the doors to the Galt Hospital building in a recreation of the 1910 event on Sunday, Sept. 26 at 11 a.m.
“It’s quite a large old fashioned key. It’s not the actual key because we can’t do that. There will be a note explaining what to do and contact us. It could be anywhere, under a bench, a rock, anywhere,” she said.
The first clue is: “Trees! Water! Go there, you'll see! Walk or race, you set the pace. Peek around Lethbridge's beautiful gathering space.”
“ One of our summer volunteers came up with the idea so we thought it would be a fun way to introduce people to an interesting piece of Lethbridge history,” she continued.
“Plus whoever finds the key gets to be part of history themselves by opening the museum during the centennial celebrations,” she continued adding they will also be opening their latest exhibit on Sept. 26.
The Sept. 26 Museum Community Day centennial celebration event also includes the official opening of the new exhibit "Galt Hospital: 100 Years", a Galt Babies Birthday Party, tours and birthday cake compliments of the Galt School of Nursing Alumnae Association, a teddy bear hospital and children's games, as well as entertainment until 4 p.m. Admission fees are waived for the day.
For more information on all events and programs at the Galt Museum & Archives visit
www.galtmuseum.com.