Gordon Armstrong (politician)

Herbert Gordon Armstrong (1905 - 1993) was a Canadian politician, who served as mayor of Whitehorse, Yukon from 1950 to 1958.[1]

Born in Whitewood, Saskatchewan,[2] Armstrong moved to Whitehorse to work as a butcher for the Burns Meat Packing Company.[1]

He won election in 1950 as Whitehorse's first mayor.[3] When he was first elected mayor, Whitehorse was still a small frontier town with little municipal infrastructure and no city hall; the council rented meeting rooms from various commercial companies until taking over a vacated Canadian Army building.[1] Initially challenged by the city's almost complete lack of any significant tax base to fund municipal services, Armstrong soon oversaw a rapid influx of federal government funding after Whitehorse was named the new capital city of Yukon in 1951.[1]

In 1954, Armstrong left his job with the Burns Company to launch Yukon Sales, a wholesaler which imported and transported commercial goods not widely available in the territory.[1] In his capacity as mayor, in the same year he launched the most ambitious program of his term, winning a plebiscite on a $10 per month municipal tax to fund the construction of the city's water and sewer systems.[1]

He stepped down as mayor in 1958, and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1962.[1] He remained a partner in Yukon Sales, making regular business trips back to Whitehorse.[1] In 1978, he was granted the honorary title of Mayor Emeritus by the incumbent city council.[2]

He died on April 28, 1993, in Kelowna, British Columbia.[2] The day after his death, statements of tribute were delivered in the Legislative Assembly of Yukon by MLAs Doug Phillips and Tony Penikett.[2]