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Still going strong today at 98 years young, Harald Krusche was an early employee at Western Propane Limited, Canada's first propane plant.
Propane is a commonly used product in Canada today, but for many decades it was considered a waste product. It, along with other "waste gas," was routinely flared.
That all changed after the second World War.
In 1946 Chemical Engineering magazine announced plans for a $500,000 plant in Turner Valley by Western Propane Limited. That's almost $6 million in 2008 currency.
"The Alberta plant is the first in this country constructed solely for the manufacture of propane gas."
Fred Stensons book, Waste to Wealth: A History of Gas Processing In Canada, summarizes the Western Propane story very well.
James Barber of Boston had arrived in Alberta in 1938 and by 1940 was operating a machine shop in Longview.
In 1946 Mr. Barber formed Western Propane and by 1948 he had his plant operating just upstream of Royalties Turner Valley gas plant along the banks of the Sheep River. It was from Royalite that he got the gas stream that included propane.
An early employee at Western Propane was a man from Poland named Harald Krusche. He was born in 1909 and educated in his homeland. When the War broke out in the late 1930s, he was a lieutenant of reserve cavalry on horseback so they put him in charge of a transportation unit. He was captured, spent time in prison before escaping by rowboat to Sweden. In England he took a masters degree in chemical engineering.
Still active today at 98 years of age, he was headed off for his California home when we...