The surge in business necessitated another bold step for
the Wetaskiwin U.F.A. Co-operative Association Ltd. They need larger premises if
they were to adequately serve the needs of their members and the local consumers.
Across the tracks sat a impressive
building only four years old, the Krogman Block. Due to
unfortunate circumstances the building had become a white elephant with delinquent taxes -
part of a bankrupt estate. The building was put up for sale and the Wetaskiwin
U.F.A. Co-operative Association Ltd. could buy it for $10,000. (Read more about the Krogman Block.)
In February 1919 the full Board of Directors of the
Wetaskiwin U.F.A. Co-operative Association Ltd. met with the banker, Shaw, of the local
Bank of Commerce to complete a final inspection of the Krogman Block which the Association
proposed to purchase for $10,000. In this empty unheated building they sat on boards
laid across boxes to finalize the deal. After a down payment of $1000 the bank
wanted collateral for the other $9000.
Each of the Board of Directors jointly and severally signed to
personally guarantee the payments on the building if the business could not meet the
payments.
Ed Peterson, who served on the first Board of Directors
and later served as manager from 1928 to 1953, was asked to write a history of the
Wetaskiwin Co-op's 50 years of Progress. He wrote then about his feelings about
signing this guarantee.
" The writer of these lines...found himself in an
awkward and uneasy situation. He explained to others on the Board that his
collateral was pretty meagre, consisting at the time of a couple of saddles and horses,
some guns and other such paraphernalia that young men of those days surrounded themselves
with.
In a1960 issue of the Co-operative Consumer another
quote says,
"I often think back on that deal. What could I
personally dig up if called upon to fulfill my part of this joint agreement? My
ownership of worldly goods was not worth $200 in total at that time. But what we
lacked in worldly goods and cash we made up in the belief that the store would succeed and
it did."
World War I was over, business and membership was growing,
and its seemed that nothing could stop the co-operative movement. The Dirty
Thirties and World War II could not have been expected. What looms ahead for the
Wetaskiwin Co-operative?
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