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
Family in early modern Scotland Reformation, "Irregular marriage", without a church ceremony or any residence qualifications, remained valid if promises were made between the couple in front of witnesses. From the 1730s the border settlements of Coldstream Bridge, Lamberton Toll, and most famously Gretna Green, developed local industries in private and rapid marriages for English couples wishing to take advantage of the more flexible Scottish marriage laws, undertaken by individuals who declared themselves marriage priests. This business would expand rapidly after the passage of Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act in 1754, which completely ended irregular marriages in England, but not in Scotland. While among the wealthy,