Continuing with my fascination over the lack of artwork on the front pages of 100-year-old Western Producers, I will note this week that three headshots appeared on the front page of the Sept. 8, 1927, issue.
One of them was a curious choice for a western Canadian farm newspaper — Chief Justice Martin of Montreal, who had been elected president of the Canadian Bar Association.
However, another of the three headshots was even more curious: Mustapha Kemal Pasha of Turkey, who from the photo caption was busily consolidating his power in that country.
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There was also a boxed item on the front page that reflected the rather breezy approach to newspaper writing that I’ve been noticing since I began reading the paper’s back issues:
“Because the plant of The Western Producer is moving, and because type cannot be set on machines on moving days, and because presses won’t run without power and because of the ten thousand inconveniences which arrive when moving day descends on a concern which has not moved in ten years, this issue of The Western Producer consists of eight pages only. Next week’s issue of the paper will be printed on a new press and issued from a new building. Cramped quarters compel us to move and this small issue is the share of the general inconvenience and discomfort which we ask our subscribers to assume.”
Other stories in that week’s issue were a bit more expected.
One was about Herman Trelle of Alberta, who was described as a “world’s champion wheat and oat grower.” The Producer reported that Trelle was developing a new wheat variety that could be seeded later and ripen 18 days earlier than other varieties.
There was also a short story about the progress that was being made in the construction of the Hudson Bay railway to what was then called Fort Churchill in northern Manitoba.
This railway and port will feature prominently in the Producer as the decades unfold.
