[Gutenberg 18742] • Willie Mouse

Willie Mouse By Alta Tabor

Willie Mouse

Willie Mouse had often heard his Ma and Pa say that the moon was made of green cheese, and one evening he thought he would see if he could find it.

He packed up a piece of cheese and a crust of bread, and, taking his lantern, set out on his travels.

History Alta Tabor

Originally, Taber was known as "Tank No. 77," and was used by the railway to fill up on water. In 1903, it is said that the first Mormon settlers from the U.S.A. were the ones to establish a hamlet at the Tank. After the town's post office was built in 1907, the CPR decided to call the town "Tabor," probably after Mount Tabor in the Holy Land. However, various letters and station heads came out printed "Taber," so the CPR changed the name to make it match the records.

An alternate version of the towns name origin is that the first part of the word tabernacle was used by Mormon settlers in the vicinity, and the next Canadian Pacific Railway station was named Elcan (nacle spelled backwards).

After time, Taber became a successful coal mining town. Coal mining declined in the late 1920s, but picked up in the 1930s after extensive irrigation in the area.

During the Second World War Japanese Canadians were "evacuated" to Alberta where some were employed in sugar beet cultivation for the duration of the war.

Irrigation helped not only the coal-miners, it also brought with it the production of sugar beets. In 1950, a sugar beet processing plant (Roger's Sugar) was built, which has become a vital part of the town's economy.

A number of archaeological discoveries were made in the vicinity of Taber, including that of extinct buffalo [3], and the so called "Taber child" in 1961 by the head of a Geological Survey of Canada team Dr. Archie Stalker in the glacial deposits along the east bank of the Oldman River.[4]

On April 28, 1999, Taber gained notoriety due to the W. R. Myers High School shooting[5] in which a 14-year-old entered W.R. Myers High School and shot two students with a .22 caliber sawn-off rifle killing Jason Lang and wounding another.