Temporary shack towns became the centre of commerce, food and entertainment in the west and south end of Turner Valley during the late depression. In the third Turner Valley boom after 1936, "Little New York" (Longview) and "Little Chicago" (Royalties) replaced earlier towns in the centre of the field such as Poverty Flats, Whisky Row and Dogtown. Shacks were simply hauled from depleted wells to the new centres of the oil play. Their names reflected the greater influence of American drilling personnel in the oilfield and the influence of American popular culture during the depression. "Little Chicago" was named after a local grocer from Black Diamond who had a scar on his upper lip and charged what were considered criminally exorbitant prices for his groceries, hence "Little Al Capone" of Little Chicago. And it naturally followed that the microcosm of American popular culture could not be complete without a "Little New York," which became the temporary name for Longview in the south field before it received its official post office designation in 1937.
Main street of this mobile and false-fronted urban environment usually boasted a general store, service station, drugstore, hotel, several restaurants, a movie theatre, pool hall, and whichever clandestine services such as gambling dens and bootleggers survived the raids of "the dry squad" from Calgary. Also, prostitutes from Calgary reputedly made their way through the villages twice monthly and circulated briefly through the company bunkhouses.
With the onset of the war and the decline of the field these communities moved away as quickly as they had come. This time they headed back north as the Home-Millarville field came in. When Royalite moved its operation in the fall of 1941, the shacks were hauled away and the restaurants and other local services moved to Millarville. In the words of a Turner Valley wit: "So that's why oil workers have big cars and small houses, the better to move them with, my dears!"
Courtesy: Provincial Archives of Alberta, H. Pollard Collection (P 1938)
