Iconic neon sign connects history for local sports store

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on June 2, 2022.

Submitted photo The Bert & Mac's neon sign is seen above the storefront back when it was located on 3 Avenue South.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

A part of Lethbridge’s commercial history is once again shining brightly at night.
Long-time city residents will remember the flashing neon sign that once was a beacon above Bert and Macs sporting goods store, both at it’s 7 St. S. location (now home to Doug’s Sports) where it was first hung in 1953 and on 3 Ave. S. where Herb’s Appliances later operated. At that second location the words “BICYCLES RADIOS” also hung below the sign.
Now that iconic sign is lit up again at Bert and Mac’s Source for Sports on 1 Ave. S. where the McFadden family moved the bicycle and sporting goods business in 1994.
At the start of the pandemic, the McFaddens renovated the store, making a second entry door so people could socially distance while entering and leaving it. Because they were renovating anyway, they decided to get the sign going up again.
“The neon had three different colours in it” so they got a quote from a neon company “and it was big dollars but we thought ‘you know what, we’re going to do this once and it will be good for a long, long time.’ We were doing the rest of the store so we thought let’s get this going,” recalled manager Jon McFadden recently.
When the McFaddens moved to their new location from 3 Avenue people told them they needed to take the sign with them, McFadden said.
“Customers voiced their opinion that ‘you got to take that with you,” he said.
“It’s a lot of years to have that sign up there,” said McFadden of the sign that’s been known to Lethbridge residents for a whopping 69 years. The McFaddens have been in business in Lethbridge for 83 years since Saskatchewan native Mac McFadden opened a store selling radios and bicycles with friend Bert Turner back in 1939.
In 1950, the business partners started selling motorcycles and refrigerators and then added pianos and organs. In 1954, they started selling CCM skates.
In 1961, six years after the venture split into two stores with McFadden taking the motorcycles and bicycles, Mac’s bicycle store became the first Suzuki motorcycle dealership in Canada which were sold out of the bicycle shop.
In 1972, the bicycle shop started selling Ski-Doo snowmobiles but in 1978 motorcycle and snowmobile sales were amalgamated under one roof at a separate store they’d opened up after purchasing the inventory of a motorcycle dealership owned by Bob Kane. That gave them the chance to begin selling Honda motorcycles which McFaddens still do at their motorcycle shop.
Jon McFadden is the grandson of Mac, whose sons Barry (Jon’s dad) and Dean the elder McFadden urged to go after a Honda car dealership for Lethbridge after he saw the make while wintering in Palm Springs. Dean died last year at the age of 76.

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