Gretna, Manitoba Gretna after Gretna Green in Scotland, also a border community, where runaway couples were married by the blacksmith at his anvil. Gretna soon became a prominent border community. As businesses thrived and expanded, Gretna life in the early 20th century was filled with promise and opportunity. As progress would have it, changes afforded Gretna no favours and the community began losing the grain milling industry responsible for its boom. After the World War II, Gretna became the centre for oil transfer to the United States of America. Enbridge Pipelines Inc. (the main storage and transfer company of oil in southern
Gretna Green the union. The Act tightened the requirements for marrying in England and Wales but did not apply in Scotland, where it was possible for boys to marry at 14 and girls at 12 with or without parental consent (see Marriage in Scotland). It was, however, only in the 1770s, with the construction of a toll road passing through the hitherto obscure village of Graitney, that Gretna Green became the first easily reachable village over the Scottish border. Scottish law allowed for "irregular marriages", meaning that if a declaration was made before two witnesses, almost anybody had the authority to conduct