The Len.Sharland Grocer building in c1926.--Photo Leonard C. Sharland
In the early 1900s, workers were needed for the rail yards, along with the new mills and clay products factories. The boom caused residential neighbourhoods to expand onto the river flats east of downtown Medicine Hat. Churches and grocery stores soon followed.
As few households had a car and only an ice box, groceries sprang up everywhere. The 1914 Henderson’s Directory lists 39 “Retail Grocers” in Medicine Hat, one being “Wm. J. McKenzie.” Customers purchased on account and settled their bill periodically.
William and Margaret McKenzie and family immigrated from Scotland in 1882, settling on a farm near Winnipeg. In 1912, aged 60, William and Margaret sold their farm and moved to Medicine Hat, purchasing a lot from H. C. Yuill. The original building permit was issued for a 1 1/2 storey frame residence (24’x26′) but re-issued for an “alteration” by architect William T. Williams as a store with living quarters above. Thus began the McKenzie grocery on Dominion Street.
In 1926, after both McKenzies had passed away, the building was acquired by Leonard A. and Jessie Sharland and a new chapter for the grocery began. Immigrants Len from England (1908), and Jessie Brannen from Scotland (1911) married in 1912 at Knox Presbyterian Church on Dominion Street. A wholesale foods deliveryman, Sharland knew McKenzie, and when the grocery became available, he bought it.
After moving into the renamed “Len. Sharland Grocer” building with their two daughters, Leona and Marion, a garage for the new 1927 Ford delivery truck was needed, so the former 1883 CPR icehouse was transported to the property. Two more children were born, Leonard C. and Donald, and the family of six lived above the store.
The Sharland grocery closed in 1935 during the Great Depression when many customers could not pay their account. Len (A.) then worked as a steward at the Royal Canadian Legion, passing away in 1950. Jessie lived in the house until she died in 1974.
In 1955, Len (C.) married Laurie Biffard and they moved into the house, sharing with his mother and brother. Len and Laurie had two children, Raeann and Lennie, the third generation of Sharlands to live in the former grocery.
Len worked for NW Nitro Fertilizers and joined the pipe band as a drummer. Both Len and Laurie were quite involved with the Stampede, with Laurie organizing the Stampede Queen contest for many years.
The grocery building was in the process of designation as a Municipal Historic Resource when the flood of 2013 caused the basement wall to collapse.
The city took over the property but determined that it did not have a use for the building and it was sold to Cube Development Ltd.
Now fully “restored” (pun intended), the McKenzie Sharland Grocery Municipal Historic Resource, which includes the icehouse, serves as a residence and the centrepiece of the McKenzie Mews development, lit at night by an original city gas streetlight.
Malcolm Sissons is vice-president of the Historical Society of Medicine Hat & District.
