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Echoes: Viola’s Dress Shop opens on Pioneer

50 Years Ago, 1961

• In 1961, a new business named Viola’s Dress Shop opened in Agassiz on Pioneer Avenue in the original Aberdeen Hotel. The Aberdeen Hotel, built in 1888, was later renamed the Agassiz Hotel then the Traveller’s Inn. In 1946 Jerome Tuyttens bought the property, demolished the building and erected a commercial building with the Bank of Montreal on the main floor and apartments above.

• About 400 people visited the display home on Vimy Road which was opened to the public by builder-owner Sam Sciotti. The first Sunday opening attracted about 250 people and another 150 showed up the second Sunday.  The home was only supposed to be open one Sunday but the announcement got printed in the paper a second time through a slight misunderstanding.

• In the spring of 1961 the first Agassiz and District Credit Union held their 5th annual meeting in the Anglican Church Hall. Plans were being made to open a part-time office in the former barbershop. The meeting approved a 4 per cent dividend on their shares and a 10 per cent rebate on the interest paid during the year. However, it was not until the early 1970s that our present credit union, Prospera, came into being under the name The Fraser Valley Credit Union.

• Two Harrison Mills girls, Lynn Korstad and Barbara Harkins represented Agassiz High School at the Conference of High School Students held at UBC February 23  and 24. Diane Reambeault was also chosen from the high school to attend the sitting of the Legislature in Victoria later in March.

Echoes from the Past is submitted weekly by members of the Agassiz Harrison Historical Society.