Gander's First Billboard

The approach path to Runway 14 (now R13) & departure  route for Runway 32 (now R31) was directly over the town's shopping centre. During the construction of the Eaton’s store back in the 50's, the marketing people for Eaton’s decided to take advantage of their stores location and made their roof top a giant billboard. Something unique in Nfld. On top of their roof they had ‘Eaton’s of Canada’ displayed in giant lettering to attract the attention of arriving/departing passengers with window seats that had a SW view of the town. Something different and innovative, an aviation billboard.

Season Greetings

With the Christmas season upon us, there is much reflection of past Christmas memories. To bring back some of these memories or to tell people of our Christmas experiences in Gander during the 1946-1958 era we link you to two pages on our website. One just recently posted and one from some time ago .

Merry Christmas to all.

First Supermarkets

Aviation has a lot of firsts that happened at the Gander Airport but we have neglected to point other happenings in the airport town that occurred as a first for the province. Did you know Goodyear’s opened the first supermarket in the province, in the early 50’s, on Foss Ave.? Also the first escalator in the province was located at the new terminal opened in 1958. Some think it was at Woolworth’s in St. John’s but no, they came in second. The second supermarket in Gander  was the Co-op stores on the American side and on the Army side. The Gander Co-op is still operating today and is probably the oldest supermarket in the province. We sure would like to know more about these early co-op stores.