LEGACY CO-OP
THE FIRST FIFTY Our Early Beginnings
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Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because, unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.
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50 These are the famous words of Noam Chomsky, an American philosopher and historian. Fitting words, as one delves into the changes that Legacy Co-op has seen in its 80 years of existence.
On March 6, 1940, 6 individuals had the courage to come together to procure goods at reasonable prices. This foresight came on the heels of one of the worst decades in our history. There was a spectacle of men, women and children, sitting and doing without things that they desperately needed; not for a lack of food, resources, power, knowledge, machines or factories, but because there did not seem to be any way to bring these resources of men and materials. Resources, both human and physical, provided and human needs satisfied. This was the depression. A time when resources of all kinds lay idle and unused in the face of desperate, unsatisfied human needs.
This Page Top Left: A reconditioned farm granary, Yorkton Co-op’s first office (1941). Bottom Left: Kamsack Co-op almagamation (1972).
One phase of this depression was the breakdown of farmers’ markets and the resultant poor prices for farm products – wheat as low as 19¢ a bushel, and cattle as low as 1¢ and 2¢ a pound. So, Right Page people all over Saskatchewan and general area set out to help Dominant Photo: Yorkton/Theodore almagamation, service station (1960). themselves. They set out to organize local livestock marketing Bottom Left: Yorkton’s West Broadway Gas Bar (1962). associations, and soon found that farmers were generally Bottom Right: Yorkton Co-op’s first food and hardware store on Betts interested. On the other side of farmers’ economic life, however, Avenue (1949). getting value for their purchasing power when they went to buy was an important factor. Association Limited. At the end of the first year there were 70 members and capital of $300. A small warehouse was purchased In other words, they realized that the cost of their farm supplies for $200 for the handling of petroleum products, and a manager was as important to them as the prices that they received for was hired. Since the retail had no truck, all fuel delivery was done their farm products. These conditions spurred farm people to in drums. organize a large number of local co-op associations, with charters to give them powers to act in a wide range of activities from In its second year of operation, Yorkton Co-op purchased an old livestock marketing to consumer and farm supply services. Local farm granary for $85 and reconditioned it into an office building, co-operative organizations were formed in Yorkton, Saltcoats, which it ran out of for a few years. Through the years that folSpringside, Theodore, Bangor, Dubuc, Melville, Churchbridge, lowed, expansion into lumber, food, hardware and larger locations Stornoway and many other centres. In nearly all cases, the were able to happen due to the continued support of customers original organization work was done by a small handful of men, and shareholders alike. with visions of new ways to organize their economic life. Almost always, these groups of men had pitifully small capitalization. They were not able to escape the recession that hit Canada during the 1980s, however. By 1981, inflation was at its highest In the case of the Yorkton Co-op: H.N. McNaughton, L.M. Switzer, point, and so were interest rates. There was much uncertainty in F.C. Draper, Donald McKen, George Larson and Carl Anderson the business community. In 1982, the recession continued, and all organized on March 6, 1940 to form Yorkton Co-operative
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