Oliver A. Butterfield

Dr. Richard Parsons

By 1903, the citizens of the new Town of Red Deer were dealing with a land boom. Many businesses started up to serve Red Deer's growing population. Most of those businesses have long since disappeared. Two firms, however, will be celebrating 100 years of continuous activity in the City in 2003: the Red Deer Advocate and Parsons Clinic.

Red Deer Advocate

In May 1902, Red Deer businessmen were infuriated that the town's weekly newspaper, The Echo, did not represent Red Deer as a vibrant centre of growth. The Board of Trade sent a delegation to the owner and editor, George and Orville Fleming. The businessmen expressed "the dissatisfaction of the board with the service rendered and request[ed] that the Echo be greatly improved or an option of purchase be given of the [printing] plant" (Red Deer Chamber of Commerce fonds [MG 254], box 1, file 1 - Minutes, 1894-1909, p. 70).

The Flemings, unwilling or unable to invest the necessary capital in the weekly, soon leased their premises and printing press to a young American who had once worked for them. Oliver A. Butterfield (1880-1951) was better known in Red Deer as a superb baseball player but he was, by education and temperament, a journalist. Born in Knoxville, Iowa, he had come north two years before to seek his fortune in the printing trade. Butterfield managed to increase the quality and circulation of the newspaper and he found willing local investors. On May 1, 1903, Butterfield and his backers bought the newspaper and changed its name to The Alberta Advocate. The newspaper they established that year has been in continuous publication ever since.

Three months later, Butterfield, always restless, and with a new family to provide for, sold out his share in the newspaper to his partners and moved away. He eventually ended up in California.

The remaining investors then created the Advocate Publishing Company. Some of them were prominent Red Deer citizens, such as Edward Michener (later an MLA and federal senator), John T. Moore (later an MLA), and G.A. Love (president of the Board of Trade and later a mayor of Red Deer).

The Advocate Publishing Company continued publishing under a string of owner-editors, until Francis Galbraith in 1907 changed the newspaper's name to the Red Deer Advocate, the name it continues to use today. British investors bought Red Deer Advocate Ltd. in 1958. And in 1996, Black Press Ltd. of Victoria, B.C. bought the company, which continues to publish the Red Deer Advocate. The newspaper has a wide circulation throughout central Alberta.

Parsons Clinic

A modern medical practice in Red Deer has roots that go back to June 1903.

In that year, Dr. Richard Parsons (1875-1944) moved to Red Deer. He had graduated from Trinity Medical College and, after a year's hospital residence in Toronto, he bought out the medical practice of Dr. H.J. Denovan in the growing town. Dr. Parsons was drawn to the community by news of the Red Deer Memorial Hospital opening in the following year.

Dr. Parsons found Red Deer much to his liking and maintained an active practice in the city until his death. Over the years he had had several partners, with the practice becoming known as Parsons and Associates. Both his sons, Richard MacGregor Parsons (1906-1974) and William Bull Parsons (1909-1987), became physicians and professional associates of their father.

After their father's death, the Drs. Parsons and Parsons continued the family medical practice. With the rapid growth of Red Deer, it became necessary for the Parsons brothers to take on more medical associates. In 1947, their expanded medical practice was renamed the Parsons Clinic.

Today the Parsons Clinic continues to provide health services to the residents of Red Deer and Central Alberta.