Alan, 100, saw Coalhurst mine disaster

By Lethbridge Herald on June 17, 2025.

Sam Leishman
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

On the brink of turning 100 years old, one man returned to Coalhurst this week to commemorate his family’s roots.

Alan Robinson was born during the final hour of Sep. 21, 1925 at a farm along Range Road 223, southwest of what is now Coalhurst’s main town site. Robinson’s grandfather, William, acquired the farm in the 1890s. A different family now operates Sunshine Market Garden on that same land.

Marion Robinson, Alan’s daughter-in-law and a historian, says he was so tiny at birth that he had to be kept in a shoebox beside the wood stove to stay warm if he wasn’t being held by his mother, Margaret, or his aunt.

Robinson attended school in Coalhurst and enjoyed a simple childhood until a mine explosion in December 1935 that killed 16 men changed his family’s trajectory forever.

Alan’s father, Adam, was a mine worker, but missed the fateful explosion due to a recent shift change.

“Dad remembers how the ground shook, the eerie noise and the sirens going off,” Marion explained on Alan’s behalf.

The mine was forced to close and it would take decades for Coalhurst to recover the residents and businesses that were lost. At one point, only a handful of people remained, according to the town’s website, until interest in the area renewed in the 1970s as a quiet place to settle down close to the amenities that Lethbridge had to offer.

Adam was disliked by local employers after advocating to get support for the widows and orphans of the mine disaster, according to Marion. So, without any further job prospects in southern Alberta, the Robinson family left for Burnaby, British Columbia in 1940 to start a new life.

Alan would later make a living as an accountant and raise a family with his wife in BC.

The Robinsons currently live in the Fraser Valley.

“We were coal miners for generations, but dad wasn’t a miner. I wasn’t a miner. What a change that is,” Alan’s son, of the same name, said.

Alan is a man of few words, but he says it’s like stepping into an entirely different world when he visits Coalhurst. To him, the whole town has changed, from the buildings to the roads and everything in-between.

He joked that it will certainly be a big deal if he makes it to his 100th birthday, and that it was nice to come back and relive some fond memories from a time long past.