My basement reno turned into a history lesson when I pulled up the old carpet

I was tearing out the nasty carpet in my 1950s bungalow near Bonnie Doon, expecting just dust and maybe some old coins. Instead, I found a whole layer of newspapers from 1957 under the padding. One article was about the opening of the West Edmonton Mall, but it called it 'the new shopping center on the west side' and said it would have 'over 100 stores'. I had to look it up, and yeah, the mall opened in 1981. So this paper from '57 was talking about something else entirely, maybe just a small local plaza. It was so weird to see that name used 24 years before the real mall even existed. I spent a good hour just reading these old ads and news bits instead of working. Has anyone else found weird time capsules like this in their walls or floors during a reno?

2 comments

2 Comments

seanperry2d ago

Wonder if the builders just used any old paper for padding, dates be damned lol

mason_stone93d ago

Did you check if there was maybe a smaller plaza with the same name back then? That's a wild find lol