Surrey-area newspaper photos and stories dating back to the 1970s will be featured during a virtual talk focused on the Leader Collection, now stored at Surrey Archives in Cloverdale.
Highlights of the June 24 talk include views of The Rodeo Drive-In before its closure, SkyTrain construction, Surrey’s first Pride Parade and the city’s first Fusion Festival.
Registration is free for the hour-long event, a 6:30 p.m. start on Microsoft Teams. Visit surrey.ca/archives for details, or call 604-501-5100.
“The Surrey Leader Collection is the largest collection at the Archives, consisting of more than one million images ranging from negatives, prints and born-digital photographs,” archivist Chelsea Bailey noted. “By profiling this collection, those attending will be able to get a glimpse of a period of dramatic change in Surrey.”
The Leader was Surrey’s longest serving newspaper, from 1929 to 2017, when a merger with the Now led to the Surrey Now-Leader.
In 2020, the Surrey Archives received a grant from the BC History Digitization Project to digitize more than 10,000 Leader images, made accessible online last fall. “The funding provides us with the opportunity to increase access to a significant portion of this collection, with emphasis placed on 1970s content,” Bailey explained.
Located at 17671 56th Ave., Surrey Archives will reopen July 6 for pre-booked, in-person appointments. Call 604-502-6459 for details.
In addition to virtual talks, the Archives has 70,000 archival photographs available online, as well as free online heritage tools, at surrey.ca/archives.
SURREY NOW & THEN: Public market memories at 64th/King George, and not much more.
tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com
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