There is nothing like a walk down memory lane, and that is what the Robinson family got this week in southern Alberta.
The family, now based in British Columbia, has its roots in Coalhurst.
Alan Robinson, his daughter Marilyn, his son – also named Alan – and his daughter-in-law, Marion, took a tour around the town on Wednesday, joined by Coalhurst councillor Heather Caldwell and director of community relations Melissa Villeneuve.
The visit marked the first time since 1940 that the elder Alan had visited the community where he was born.
The family road trip also commemorates a special year for Alan, as he turns 100 later this year. Marion says he was born at midnight on September 21, “So we say September 22”.
On seeing Coalhurst for the first time in decades, Alan Sr. says it is like “a different world”, with the community “built up with roads [and] buildings”.
He notes the visit has brought back good childhood memories.
Marion, a historian, affectionately calls her father-in-law ‘dad’ and says it is so special to be back in the community that is so strongly tied to their family history.
“We looked at the map where we can identify where the mine head used to be, where his father used to work and where he had to walk to school down Range Road 222-3 and he had to go over the dump site, the slag heap, to go to the school and I asked dad, ‘what about your shoes? Didn’t they get all slag dirty?’ and he said, ‘you shake it off and you go to school’,” she says with a laugh.
Alan Sr.’s grandfather applied for a homestead grant for his family farm in 1893. A homestead grant was a land grant program in Western Canada that encouraged settlement and land cultivation. Individuals could acquire a 160-acre plot for a small price and by making improvements to the land and living on it for a specific period.
Marion says he achieved results by 1899. “And that was to go from one horse to 12 Clydesdales, and eight cows, and we can see on the record that he had 20 acres under cultivation, and we visited that site [Tuesday],” she notes.
“We found out that who is living there now is from where we live now – so it’s like it stayed in the family. It’s kind of wonderful.”
The Robinson family roots are strongly connected to the coal mines in the region, with Alan Sr.’s father Adam having worked in the Coalhurst mines.
However, things changed on December 9, 1935, with an explosion in the Coalhurst Mine.
The accident led to the death of 16 workers. Adam Robinson had changed shifts that day to tend to other work duties, which saved him from the explosion.
After five years, due to a lack of work availability, an opportunity arose in British Columbia, and the Robinsons left Coalhurst on June 9, 1940.
Marion explains that Alan’s mother’s side of the family, the Kerrs, had gained a foothold in Burnaby, B.C., which led the entire family to move out west, where his father worked with the Labatt Breweries in New Westminster, a plant that has since closed down.
“It was difficult. There wasn’t an easy road from here to the West Coast. They had to travel through the [United] States to get to where they were going,” she says with a smile.
Alan Sr.’s daughter Marilyn says that following the explosion, her grandfather Adam fought for proper rights and care for the spouses and children of the mine explosion victims.
“It didn’t make him popular with employers,” she says with a laugh. “I think that was another reason for them leaving, but I always knew about Coalhurst.”
Marilyn says she was last in Coalhurst over a decade ago with her late mother.
“We came because I had come through here with a friend and stopped at the [Galt] Museum and found a picture of my aunt Hannah, who was born a Kerr and married Murphy. Her husband and she had both been employees at the post office, and there’s a photograph of, I think, it’s the whole group of postal workers.”
After visiting the Coalhurst Town Office Wednesday, the family visited Imperial Meadows Park, which features an exhibit honouring both the pioneers of the town and its future.
Following their visit in Coalhurst, the Robinsons went into Lethbridge for a stop at the Galt Museum and Archives. Alan Sr. has memories of the neighbouring city as well, having walked across the High Level Bridge “a couple times”.
Reflecting on the mine disaster in 1935, Alan Jr. says, “The explosion itself changed the direction [for the family]. We were coal miners for generations – northeast England, Scotland, and back east, and it just changed the direction.”
“Dad wasn’t a miner, I wasn’t a miner, and what a change that is,” he says, adding the family would have likely stayed in Coalhurst had it not been for the explosion.
The Robinsons’ visit coincides with the 30th anniversary of Coalhurst being reincorporated into a town, which was recognized on June 1, 2025.
READ MORE: Coalhurst celebrates 30th anniversary of reincorporation in 2025
