Old St. Andrews

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Town Improvement

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Especially with the arrival of tourist traffic, there was pressure on St. Andrews to improve the appearance of the Town. This involved some basic alterations to the way in which ordinary citizens were used to living, but which were not perhaps eastily comprehensive readily acceptable to those from large cities, where other assumptions prevailed. So it was that the beach, common refuse dump for just about everything business and householder cared to throw its way, needed to be cleaned up. No longer was it acceptable that cows should roam at large, or pigs or chickens. The offensive garbage dump at town center and at Indian Point needed to go. The average householder was encouraged to keep their properties well-tended, with fences kept in good repair and paint regularly applied to homes. There was some attention to the conditon of roads as well, especially important afer the turn of the century, when that marvellous new invention, the automobile, came on the scene.

 

A major need in Town improvement was a supply of running water. This had been promised by the St. Andrews Land Company as early as 1888, along with the electric light--both of which would adorn their cottage development at Indian Point and be extended to the Town. But hopes were soon deceived. A wet autumn caused both Company and Town to forget this pledge, and in later years the Company launched into an artestian well system instead. After the CPR bought the assets of the Land Company in 1903, this system was expanded in various wells around the Algonquin Hotel. But with the expansion of tourism and the addition of several large wings to the Hotel, water supplies ensued and the CPR finally laid out a water line to Chamcook Lake. The Town, however, was too poor to afford to pay CPR water rates, and many years elaplsed, and many acrimous columns adorned the pages of the St. Andrews Beacon before, in 1919, 31 years after the inception of the St. Andrews Land Company, an agreement was hammered out to supply the Town with water at the Algonquin water main. A plebiscite was held on the matter in 1920, and in 1921 St. Andrews had water from Chamcook Lake.