The Vermilion School Of Agriculture Is Ready To Open

At the end of June 1913, the Vermilion School of Agriculture was ready to open its doors to the students ready to start attending in November.

The school was constructed over the previous year and was expected to be completed by the end of July. It was to be furnished and equipped in a first-class manner for the teaching of practical and scientific agriculture, domestic science, and household economy.

The Edmonton Journal described the building as a most complete building and stated that experts called it well-adapted to the purposes for which it was built.

Within the building was a machine shop, carpenter shop, chemical laboratory, and library that was equipped in a first-class manner.

Ernest Albert Howes was hired as the first principal. He came to the school from the University of Nevada. He was expected to open his office in early July and would be spending most of his time making arrangements, visiting prospective students, and making general preparations for work that had to be done at the school as opening day neared.

The school in that first year would have a two-month course in Domestic Science and Household and Economy that would be provided for female students. The male students would have a full six-month’s course in agriculture and several other sciences. The first class of students would be 34 men, no women.

The Vermilion School of Agriculture would become one of the best agriculture schools in the Canadian Prairies. The school would keep operating until 1918 when it was turned into a makeshift hospital during the Spanish Flu pandemic. It would be open off and on for the next two decades until the Second World War. Today, it is known as Lakeland College.

But it all started in 1913, when the school was ready to open, and its principal was putting in the finishing touches that would make the school one of the best of its kind in Canada.

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