By Lara Fominoff (@fomsy1 on Twitter)

Sir Alexander and son Elliott Galt take their place once again in Lethbridge

Aug 15, 2017 | 10:48 AM

LETHBRIDGE – You can now have a seat with Sir Alexander Galt, and his son Elliott, and ponder the conversation the two would be having about the city they helped build.
 
The two new, commissioned statues were installed in front of the Museum that bears their name, Monday morning (August 14).
 
Susan Burrows-Johnson, CEO and Executive Director of the Galt Museum, says the project is three years in the making, and came in under the $140,000 that was budgeted for the work.
 
“There’s no government money involved with the statues. This is all community money. There were individual donors, there was money from special events. It’s an accumulation of money.”
 
The museum’s Board of Directors put out a cross-country appeal a couple of years ago, for an artist to create a statue or statues celebrating the Galts.
 
Ontario artist Robert Dey was chosen to create them.
 
“I think they’re absolutely fabulous,” Burrows-Johnson says. “The likeness from all of the photos that we have seen, the artist has certainly captured all of that.”
 
Sir Alexander Galt was a businessman and father of Canadian Confederation. Together with his son Elliott, they co-created the City of Lethbridge in 1883.
 
Elliott also created coalmines and irrigation systems in southern Alberta, while also bringing businesses to the city.
 
Burrows-Johnson believes that it’s important for people to be able to put faces to the names that were instrumental in laying the foundation for community that thrives today.
 
“Museums are informal educational institutions and we were quite worried that the community didn’t understand some of the people that helped found Lethbridge….and I think showing their faces is part of that.”
 
The Galt Museum will hold an official celebration and unveiling ceremony on Labour Day, Monday September 4.
 
Admission to the museum will also be free to the public that day.