There were no modern conveniences. The washing had to be done on a washboard. There were no bathtubs or indoor bathrooms. The mothers usually sewed all the children’s clothes, dad’s shirts, and knit all the stockings and mitts by hand. Everybody burned wood in the stoves. The wood had to be cut with an axe or sawed by hand. The water had to be pumped from the well and carried to the house in pails and heated on top of the stove for washing and scrubbing.

CHAPS members recently made a presentation to town council about the use of a  fallen tree stump on the Cochrane Ranche property. That presentation is below: Deep Dive CochraneNow article on 25th Anniversary Sculpture presentation

Times were hard back then; we kept a few chickens and there was always a big garden. Dad worked from 9 a.m. until 1 a.m. nearly every day. A shave was twenty-five cents and a haircut was fifty cents. Dance nights were always busy with men coming in from the country for haircuts, prior to going to the dances.

Cochrane Arena, standing since 1974, is a finalist in the Kraft Hockeyville competition, with voting open from March 29-30. The prize is $250,000 for renovations and a chance to host an NHL game. Residents are encouraged to vote and support Cochrane’s bid for the revival of their historic rink. Nicole Henson contributed recent photos for the campaign.

I have watched Cochrane grow into the large town it is today, and I am sure it will retain a great deal of its character through the many changes.