Once horses ruled the roads

Talk focuses on when P.E.I. banned cars

Heritage Week across Canada begins Feb. 19 and the national theme is “Heritage Stands the Test of Time”.

Culture Summerside’s MacNaught History Centre is looking back 100 years to when the people of P.E.I. were divided on whether to accept the “horseless carriage”, otherwise known in the rest of North America as the internal combustion engine powered automobile.

While the automobile has so far stood the test of time, the power train that it replaced was the horse. On P.E.I. in 1911 there were 36,000 of them, roughly one for every three Islanders. They were found on 14,000 farms of approximately 100 acres each. And many farm families felt threatened by this ‘public nuisance’. Their political representatives heard the outcry and in a vote 28-0 banned the automobile beginning in 1908.

Culture Summerside will present a Heritage Week talk at Lefurgey Cultural Centre on Feb.20 at noon. Author and antique auto enthusiast, Rudy Croken, will speak on the ban the automobile era and how it was received in Summerside 1908-1919. Using excerpts from his new book, “Ban the Automobile Instrument of Death”, Croken will talk about who welcomed the automobile with open arms and which residents of East Prince wanted nothing to do with it.

Back in the day a horse and buggy could get you home while you slept off the effects of an evening of partying. Imagine, today we 21st century folk think that “driverless” or “self-driving” is something new in transportation.

The talk will be approximately 45 minutes long and all are welcome.

123RF/SUBMITTED PHOTO Horses once ruled the roads on Prince Edward Island and in the early 20th century the province banned cars to make way for the horses.