Annual Historic Walking Tours are back with stories of the Hat
By Samantha Johnson Special to the News on July 5, 2022.
Sally (McGee) Sehn was born and raised on First Street in Medicine Hat, and she brings stories from her childhood into the First Street Walking Tour. A new tour has been added this year, Historic Railroad District, with the first one commencing July 9. Sehn joined the Heritage Resources Committee in 2015 and found their Historic First Street project intriguing so became involved. The walking tours began in 2018 and she has been the only guide since they started. The tour comes with a booklet written by Sehn that is packed with facts. Born and raised on First Street, she was acquainted with some of the people mentioned on the tour and has many stories from her childhood to share. “They used to be very dry and boring because there was lots of architecture involved rather than about the people, and I found the people much more interesting,” stated Sehn. Her great uncle James Knott, homesteaded in this area around 1900 and is buried at Maple Creek Cemetery. Knotts was born in West Virginia, and it is through this ancestry that Sally is related to the late comedian actor Don Knotts. Following Knotts, her grandfather James Gordon McGee arrived with his family and bought a house in Medicine Hat in 1916, which still stands today. Sehn’s parents moved to First Street about 1950, and her mother remained in the house for 50 years. This house no longer exists, it was torn down in 2013 to build a parking lot. A white gazebo marks the spot where the house used to stand. The Medicine Hat Railway District is not as familiar to Sehn from her childhood, but she has done extensive research and another booklet has been published, which is included with the price of the tour. Sehn is excited about the new tour, which includes a building built around a caboose and many interesting stories about the people who built Medicine Hat. The tours run each Saturday through the summer. They alternate between Historic First Street, which meets in the Esplanade lobby, and Historic Railroad District, which meets at Town Square. Check out the Esplanade website to book a tour (https://www.esplanade.ca/programs-pages/experiences). 11-10
