Historical Society

Happy 75th to Mayor Magrath Drive

In 1947, the City of Lethbridge renamed Airport Drive to Mayor Magrath Drive. “Council agreed in the resolution to advise Mr. Magrath that the highway from Third Avenue South southwards to the city limits over the old A.R. and I. railway grade is being named the Mayor Magrath Drive in his honor.” Mayor Magrath Drive started as the Crow’s Nest Railway in 1897-98. When the Crow’s Nest Railway was redeveloped in 1909, Lethbridge City Council leased, and then purchased, the railway right-of-way of the old track for a road into Lethbridge from the south. It was originally called the Southeast Entrance Road.

Initially the road was simply a narrow, unimproved road along the top of the old railway grade. When Kenyon Field Airport developed south of Lethbridge in the late 1930s, the road became known as Airport Drive and Council started to call for hard-surfacing of the road.

In May 1947, the road was renamed Mayor Magrath Drive, after Charles Magrath, Lethbridge’s first mayor. Shortly after the road was renamed, the city looked to purchase land to widen Mayor Magrath Drive and started to develop the road we know today. The photograph shows Airport Drive in June 1939 when it experienced a traffic jam during the official opening of the airport.

Lethbridge Historical Society

facebook.com/LethbridgeHistoricalSociety/ Photograph: compliments of Galt Museum & Archives.