Oil Town
1914 to 1947
The end of WWI and the discovery of fossil fuels in great quantities led to Calgary’s second big development boom throughout the 1920s.
Second Boom
Communities continued developing all across the city.
In Roxboro, the Scout Hall was built in 1929. It housed the 10th Calgary Troop Boy Scouts as well as town hall meetings. It’s the oldest purpose-built scout hall in Calgary and is a cross between drill hall and Arts & Crafts style home. This style was described by its founder William Morris as “hav[ing] nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”.
It’s sometimes called Sara Scout Hall, after F. Leslie Sara, who was known for his radio broadcasts and newspaper articles on nature. The Boy Scouts were established in Calgary in 1910. Sara became their leader in 1923 and taught boating and life-saving skills on the Elbow River. His wife was active in the Girl Scouts and beautified the site with tulips.
Roxboro was also home to one of Calgary’s first broadcasting stations, CFAC. In 1920, W.W. “Bill” Grant had built a radio transmitter in Morely, AB for the forest fire patrol. It then moved to High River, AB, where he started experimenting with broadcasting music. The Calgary Herald picked up these broadcasts from its transmitter on its building, which then moved to the neighbourhood.
When the federal government opened licences for private commercial broadcasting in 1922, George M. Bell licensed CFAC and Grant moved his station to Calgary under the randomly assigned call letters CFCN – the Voice of the Prairies. It was the first Canadian station to carry regularly scheduled news broadcasts, the first radio station to sell advertising space and it aired the first commercial newscast, sponsored by Texaco.
Next door, in Cliff Bungalow, is the Aberhart Residence. Its first owners were William and Jessie Aberhart. Aberhart founded the Social Credit party in Alberta and would win the 1935 Alberta election, becoming the 7th premier. The Residence was built in 1927 while Aberhart was principal at several schools in the city, including Crescent Heights High School. He was known as Bible Bill for his bible study classes at Westbourne Baptist Church (demolished in 2017) and preached on the radio.
Their residence was also the home of Ernest Manning, Social Credit party leader and Premier of Alberta from Aberhart’s death in 1943 until they were ousted by the upstart Progressive Conservative party in the 1968 election, making him the longest serving premier in Canadian history.
Manning worked alongside Aberhart, graduated from his Bible study, and boarded with them until Aberhart moved to Edmonton as Premier. In Aberhart’s cabinet, he became the youngest minister in the British Empire. The Residence is a Craftsman style bungalow built largely after most of Cliff Bungalow was developed by the CPR for its employees. In 1935, the character of the neighbourhood changed when apartment-style buildings were constructed.
In Bowness, the community grew into a town with the addition of more residences, which today are iconic elements of the neighbourhood. Yet some are at risk of being demolished. The Phillips Residence is one. It was built in 1928 in Dutch Colonial Revival style and is an example of what John Hextall envisioned for Bowness. Leonard Phillips was president of the CSE between 1938-1949 and a member of Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry during WWI.
Besides communities and residences, Calgary received up-to-date infrastructure. Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) was formed in 1906 through the purchase of private telephone companies, including Bell Telephones, to provide province-wide service. After WWI, the demand for services increased, which meant infrastructure was needed around the city to house the wiring. These exchanges were built purposely to resemble houses, sometimes with an English architectural influence.
In Hillhurst, an exchange was built in 1922 with brick highlighted by arches around the windows. Another one was built in Elbow Park in 1928 to serve the growing number of white collar workers.
A grand headquarters to handle the increasing number of phones and calls was built in downtown Calgary in 1929. The AGT Building is a 4-storey steel structure faced with brown brick with Tyndall stone trim. It was built with Art Deco and Gothic Revival style influences and had the first automatic elevators in Alberta.
Another addition to the downtown was the Palace Theatre.
It was built in 1921 by pioneering Canadian movie theatre owner Barney Allen and Sons. It’s a Renaissance Revival style building with Corinthian columns arranged across the brick facade, the only one of Calgary’s early theatres to survive. Its lavish and ornate interior is reminiscent of the age before “talkie” movies were introduced. It played home to the first public radio broadcast in Calgary, a Bible study by William Aberhart in 1925. Since then it has undergone several respectful restorations as one of the last of these kinds of theatres in Canada.
Just down from Hudson’s Bay department store on 8th Ave was located Eaton’s, which opened in 1929.
Timothy Eaton Co. was a rival to Hudson’s Bay as a distributor of consumer goods. Founded in Toronto in 1869, Eaton’s catalogue was famous across the country, relying on the expanding railways to serve Canadians. By 1896, it called itself “Canada’s Greatest Store”. It took advantage of the boom in the 1920s by expanding its physical footprint into major cities and towns.
Calgary’s first of 12 eventual stores was a 4-storey building in the Italian Renaissance Revival style. It had the first escalator in the city. It was demolished in 1988 to make way for the Eaton Centre downtown shopping mall. Eventually, Eaton’s succumbed to competition and folded, with its downtown store redeveloped into Holt Renfrew and the Eaton Centre renamed The Core.
The boomtimes saw Calgary gain more main streets, in no small part due to the addition of 20,000 people between 1926 and 1931. This spelt the long-term decline of the original main streets, Atlantic Ave (9th Ave) in Inglewood and Stephen Avenue in the core, but their development provided a growing population with services closer to home.
One such street was right next door to Stephen Ave, with a growing commercial presence along 7th Ave SW in the late-1920s. Between Centre and 1st St SW is a grouping of buildings that form a contiguous streetscape with similar styles, a simplified Edwardian Commercial style in brick with recessed entrance, cast iron columns and pressed metal signboards.
The street became part of the Stampede parade route in 1923 and the Grey Cup parade of 1949. It lacked the higher class form of the Stephen Ave shopping district, serving the accompanying clientele. With Stephen Ave becoming a pedestrian mall in 1969, and the C-Train’s installation in 1980, 7th Ave lost its energy.
Speaking of the Stampede, Calgary turned 50 years old in 1925 and the Stampede was the venue for celebrations. At it, the recently-formed RCMP performed its now famous musical ride, which featured the 1906 composition by Calgarian Annie Glen Broder called “The Ride of the Royal North West Mounted Police”. Her teacher in England was none other than Andrew Sullivan, of Gilbert and Sullivan theatre fame. You can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7TYRRYE0LE
Another new main street at the time was along 10 St NW.
Starting with the Carscallen Block, it served from 1911 as a hardware business and grocery store. Next to it was built the Irwin Block in 1912. After the war years, development continued with several more buildings filling out 10th St. These were small-scale Edwardian Commercial buildings with large display windows that added more services to the neighbourhood along one of the streetcar routes.
The Lough and Elaine Apartments is an example of development in Sunnyside during the time. Workers and professionals were arriving in the city owing to the Turner Valley gas fields. Apartments blocks met the demand for housing, with the Lough and Elaine building developing separately and later joined by a tunnel. Another example is Glenwood Manor, a premier destination for the emerging professional class, complete with new Fridgidaires and a choice of electric of gas cooking. It’s in the Georgian Revival style building with influences from many other styles.
Following these constructions was the Plaza Theatre. It was built in 1934, the last neighbourhood theatre in Calgary and its only single-screen cinema. It’s an Art Deco building with Spanish Colonial influences.
This was a time when a new medium, the movie, was in high demand and each neighbourhood could support a theater, with line ups around the block for Saturday matinees. It also became known for showing Bollywood movies and art films not found elsewhere. Another well known theatre is Tivoli, in Mission, an Art Moderne style building finished in 1937.
Across from the Plaza was built the King George Masonic Hall. The Hall was one of four constructed in the city and retains its masonic emblem over the entrance. The first masonic hall was built on 12th Ave SW in 1928 in the Stripped Classical style, a variant of Art Deco, with geometry and rectangular symmetry. Its construction helped with the revival of the Beltline after WWI.
This growth is evident in the appearance of more apartment-style buildings. Strand Apartments represents the evolution of the Beltline away from buildings like Lougheed House and toward a more mixed neighbourhood.
A slew of apartment block construction led the city to tighten rules around mass accommodations. It was built in 1920 in the Classical Revival style as rectangular and symmetrical in shape with crowned front entry porch. It has red bricks positioned in courses with stylized brown bricks at the corners.
Another apartment of the era is the rare Spanish Colonial Revival style President Apartments, built in 1927 by Samuel Diamond, descendent of the first Jewish family to have settled in Calgary in 1889.
One more to mention is Barnhart Apartments, a Tudor Revival style building that wowed the newspapers at the time and housed many professionals, including the son of Senator Lougheed.
Growth also occurred along Centre Street.
The Tigerstedt Block is one of the original buildings from this era of development, which was delayed because of the war even though access to downtown improved via Centre Street Bridge in 1916. The modest Stripped Classical style single storey commercial block is typical of strip development that bordered residential working class areas.
Albert Tigerstedt was a well-known local portrait photographer with studios in the area, moving into the building in 1952 and adding an Art Modern style wing. He was a photographer in the Royal Canadian Navy in WWII. His studio’s 10-foot multi color neon sign is a classic maker of Crescent Heights.
From Home-steads to Neighbour-hoods
Calgary’s growth into an Oil Town meant that elements of Cow Town era were becoming obsolete. The homesteading area that was Colonel Walker’s was converted by his son, Selby, into one of the first federally designated migratory bird sanctuaries. These were enabled when Canada and the U.S. signed the Migratory Birds Convention in 1917.
Other parts of the homestead were leased to several Chinese families, who used the land to establish market gardens. This became part of the Sanctuary in 1970, with a Nature Centre constructed in 1996. It records the 270 species of birds, 21 species of mammals and 347 species of plants that have been recorded at the Sanctuary.
Another homestead was in today’s Mount Pleasant. It was then planned to be a new community, Highbury, in 1907, but the idea never took off. In 1917, the John Keim/Mary J. Reavley Residence was built on farmland on what was then the outskirts of town. It’s an American Colonial Revival style home with a steep side gable roof and rectangular windows. By 1924, the home was among a cluster of buildings, with the area not building out until the 1950s.
One other marker of growth north of the Bow was the construction of St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church.
The Calgary parish was divided between St. Mary’s Cathedral in Mission and St. Benedict’s north of the Bow in 1912. The plan was for an English language school headed by Benedictine Fathers, but disagreements meant the Fathers returned to England in 1914, with the parish renamed St. Joseph’s. Bishop McNally purchased plots in Mount Pleasant in 1914 for a church and school, which opened in 1915. Its style is Gothic Revival, reminiscent of 12th century French ecclesiastical forms.
Adjacent is the neighbourhood of Tuxedo Park. It was annexed in 1911, with working class families occupying the area. One of the first parts of the area to urbanize was Balmoral.
Balmoral School was opened in 1915. To accommodate growth after the war, a Bungalow School was added in 1919.
Bungalow schools are a design unique to Calgary, a 4-room Prairie subtype of the Arts and Crafts style building, with low-pitched sheltering roof and banks of windows for light. These were a step up from the cottage schools that served Calgary since its beginnings. These Bungalows provided much-needed space during the boomtimes, when construction of sandstone schools could not keep pace.
A typical residence of the area’s growth between the world wars is Biles Residence. It’s a Craftsman style building, noted for its simplicity, natural materials and harmony with the environment.
This kind of building was in the pattern books and housing catalogues, useful considering the high demand for construction. City employee William Biles ordered his package from the Aladdin Co. of Michigan and built it in 1929.
A different kind of community formation also occurred at this time.
Métis Nation of Alberta (MNA) was founded as the Association des Métis Alberta et les Territoires du Nord-Ouest in 1928. Felice Calihoo, Joseph Dion, James P. Brady, Malcolm Norris, and Peter Tompkins were responding to Métis efforts to advocate for their land rights, which the convoluted scrip system has rendered useless in small part due to the fraudulent acquisition of land meant for the Métis.
Their advocacy pressured the Alberta Government to set up in 1934 the Ewing Commission to investigate the economic and social issues of Métis. In 1938, the government proposed an Act to set aside a secure land base for Métis. Decades of further advocacy saw increased social support and economic development for the eight Metis settlements (in 2021, their combined population was 4200).
In the last decade, further negotiations produced a self-government agreement that recognizes the MNA as the government of Métis in Alberta.
The Great Depression
Despite the oil and gas discoveries, Alberta was not immune to the effects of the Great Depression. A stock market crash in October 1929, referred to as Black Thursday, sent commodity prices falling, with wheat not hitting bottom until 1932. It didn’t help that a major fire in Turner Valley in 1931 burt two blocks in the business district. Both Turner Valley and Black Diamond declared bankruptcy.
At the lowest point of the Depression, 15,000 of Calgary’s 75,000 residents were on welfare. For Pat Burns’ 75th birthday in 1931, he announced during the Stampede that unemployed Calgarians would be given a ticket in exchange for food and each unemployed couple would receive five pounds of roast beef. It was said Victoria Park became the biggest soup kitchen in the British Empire.
To make matters worse, Captain Palliser’s warning about the region’s unsuitability to agriculture came to a dramatic head when the prairies suffered a drought that lasted from 1929 to 1937.
It’s a time known as the “Dirty Thirties” due to the amount of fertile topsoil that was blown away during the drought. Grasshopper infestations and hailstorms worsened the situation. Up to one quarter of Canada’s arable land was rendered unproductive, with almost 14,000 farms abandoned. The prairies provinces were virtually bankrupted.
Progress in establishing the prairies as a breadbasket took a great effort by many pioneers. With farms forming across the region, many towns rushed to construct grain elevators along the railways and their branch lines to better access world markets. These became known as Prairie Sentinels, for they were visible from a distance on the flat prairie. Hundreds were built across Alberta beginning in 1895, reaching an all time high of 1781 in 1934.
Excellent examples of grain elevators have been preserved in Nanton, AB at the Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre. The northern twin elevators were built in 1927 and the southern one in 1926. They lasted until their decommissioning in 2000. A local society purchased the elevators and has worked to restore them. They became a provincial historic site in 2022.
In Calgary, the oldest remaining grain infrastructure is Fletchers Elevator Limited in Inglewood, which was built in 1914 to store grain and process feed.
The grain elevator was destroyed by fire in 1963. The oldest remaining building in the city that functioned as a flour mill is the 1918 Spillers Canadian Milling Co. (formerly known as Alberta Flour Mills Ltd.) building in Bonnybrook.
Public Works
To combat the overall economic situation, governments created public works projects to generate employment at the same time as complete needed upgrades or infrastructure development. Calgary’s largest public works project was the construction of Glenmore Reservoir.
The growth of the city demanded water treatment, pumps, 270 miles of pipeline, dam and storage infrastructure. Total cost was $4 million ($70 million today) and it flooded 900 acres of land, including land leased from Tsuu T’ina as well as Sam Livingston’s homestead. His home was moved to Heritage Park and the new water feature took the name of Glenmore School on the ranch.
The project was planned in 1929 to deal with the seasonal muddy waters that the spring thaw would send into town. After the Depression, work went forward as part of unemployment relief. Local firms, locally produced materials and thousands of Calgarians were involved in the project.
The Water Treatment Plant was built in 1933. It’s located on the Elbow River on the north side of the Reservoir and is an Art Deco three-storey office building with a filtration gallery attached at the rear. It has porthole windows to reflect its purpose and red brick facade with Tyndall stone and sleek marble tiled interiors. Such details were part of integrating it into the surrounding natural area as befitting a public building of the era.
Another public works project at the time was Currie Barracks. We’ll get into Calgary’s military history next month. For now, the project involved the construction of ten buildings at a cost of $1.6 million. Hundreds more quarters were built adjacent to the base in the late 1940s and early 1950s It became the headquarters of the 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade Group in 1958 until 1997, when the base was decommissioned.
Calgary also expanded out its utilities and electricity infrastructure. Electric substation No.1 was first built in 1912 for downtown street lighting and current for the streetcar network. In 1926, an addition was built to the existing building in the same Edwardian Commercial style. It went through many upgrades over the decades and a new substation is currently being built.
In South Calgary, a Renaissance Revival style structure was completed in 1930 to house a substation, no.4. Its uniqueness made it a landmark in the area, which developed several years later. No.4 substation could be operated remotely from No.1.
Most homebuilding occurred in the 1950s, with the area becoming more commonly associated with Marda Theatre by the 1980s. The theatre was opened in 1952 by owners Marc and Mada Jenkins, hence Marda, a combination of their names. It closed in 1988 and was demolished in 1990, but the name for the area stuck.
In 1939, the Public Utilities building was completed. It’s a rare Art Moderne building in Calgary, being built with additional Art Deco detailing in order to provide work for skilled labourers during the Depression.
It was the largest single building project in downtown at the time and allowed administrative offices to move from the basement of City Hall.
In the new building, waterworks and electric lights were headquartered, until 1957, when the building was sold to AGT. It was the first building in Calgary to use air conditioning and possibly the first in Calgary to receive an IBM computer.
Other public works projects that were investments in Calgary and area were the construction of a highway between Banff and Jasper (the Icefields Parkway) as well as an administrative building for the park and a new bathhouse at Banff Upper Hot Springs, near Cave and Basin.
Cars had been banned in the national park since 1903, but in 1909 members of Calgary’s auto club made the trip in over 8.5 hours. The park superintendent quickly realized car travel would arrive at the park, bringing more tourists and investment. The ban was lifted in 1915 despite some opposition.
The additional infrastructure was the result of an increase in tourism to the park. Winter tourism was not a priority for the CPR and so instead Banff organized its first Winter Carnival in 1917. Norman Luxton, aka “Mr. Banff”, helped spearhead the project and also invested in the building of the King Edward Hotel and the Lux Theatre.
With Eric Harvie of the Glenbow Foundation, he founded the Buffalo Nations Museum. He was also instrumental in seeing a buffalo herd established within the park, which were gifted by Lord Strathcona.
For his work with Indigenous peoples and helping return them and their culture to the national park, he was made an honorary chief of the Stoney Nakoda. His daughter went on to found Eleanor Luxton Historical Foundation to foster public awareness of Banff’s history. It’s housed in the Luxton’s home, built in 1905 and part of the Whyte Museum.
All this growth in the townsite helped lead to the first downhill ski resort, Mount Norquay in 1929, followed by Sunshine Village.
Sunshine Meadows was a popular camping site in the 1920s, with Pat Brewster leading tourists for overnight stays. The CPR built a log cabin for use by trailriders, today’s Old Sunshine Lodge, which was subsequently used by skiers in winter. The Brewsters then leased the cabin in 1934 for vacations and hired Swiss guide Bruno Engler as the first ski instructor in 1939.
Still in the Rockies but further south, another railway hotel was built. The Prince of Wales Hotel at Waterton Parks was built in 1926 by the Great Northern Railway of the U.S. to lure American tourists north of the border during their Prohibition era, which had ended in Alberta in 1924.
It’s the only grand railway hotel built by Americans and is in the Rustic style, with wood pillars and timber framing along with Swiss Chalet influences, including balconies, steep roofs and brightly contrasting walls. It was named after the then Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, who owned a ranch nearby (though when on tour he did not stay at his namesake hotel). Nevertheless it’s a fitting name for such an elegant hotel.
The Depression era did have some good news for Calgary’s heritage.
The Calgary Zoo expanded in 1934 with the addition of a Natural History Park, based on examples observed in Germany. Sculptors Charlie Biel and John Kanerva built replica dinosaurs for the park.
Dinny the Dinosaur is the only remaining original sculpture, the others having been destroyed when Prehistoric Park moved off the island to the north in 1983. They were too expensive to move, with Dinny alone weighing 109 tonnes.
To help during the Depression, lumber companies donated materials to the zoo and Pat Burns donated 100 pounds of meat a week to feed the animals. Tom Baines was the zoo’s only employee at its start and was curator from 1929-1964.
Besides an outing at the park, during hard times sports can offer an outlet to escape one’s difficulties.
At the time, the Calgary Tigers were playing as part of the Alberta Rugby Football Union. They won their first Western Canadian title in 1911. Play resumed after the war, with several teams playing for Calgary. Then in 1929, a pass from Calgary player Gerry Seiberling to Ralph Losie became the first legal forward pass in Canadian football history.
The Calgary Stampeders were founded in September 1945. Their first game was against the Regina Rough Riders at Mewata Stadium, which they won in front of the home crowd. Not too bad for a city about to reach 100,000, an Oil Town on the Canadian prairie.
Next month we’ll break from the chronology and look closer at Calgary during the war years.
Where to See this Era
Palliser Hotel, 133 9 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2P 2M3
Heritage Hall, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, 1301 16 Ave NW, Calgary, AB T2M 0L4
Hudson’s Bay, 200 8 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2P 1B5
Shaganappi Point Golf Course, 1200 26 St SW, Calgary, AB T3C 1K1
Reader Rock Garden National Historic Site, 325 25 Ave SE, Calgary, AB T2A 7H8
Vacant Lot Gardens, 46 7 St NE, Calgary, AB T2E 8W2
Historic Boulevards, various locations (for example, 8 Street NE between 1 Ave & 5 Ave)
Balmoral Circus, 2nd Street and 19 Avenue NW, Calgary, AB T2M 2W6
Calgary Zoo/Wilder Institute, 210 St. George’s Drive NE, Calgary, AB T2E 7V6
Coleman National Historic Site and Museum, 7701 18 Ave, Coleman, AB T0K 0M0
Frank Slide Interpretive Centre, 2325 153 St, Blairmore, AB T0K 0E0
Leitch Collieries Provincial Historic Site, Crowsnest Pass, AB T0K 0C0
The Nordegg Discovery Centre and Brazeau Collieries Historic Mine, 4002 Stuart St, Nordegg, AB T0M 2H0
Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site, 110 Century Dr W, East Coulee, AB T0J 1B0
First Oil Well in Western Canada National Historic Site, Waterton Lakes National Park, Township Rd 14A, Improvement District No. 4, AB T0K 0C3
Turner Valley Gas Plant National Historic Site, Sunset Blvd SE, Diamond Valley, AB T0L 2A0
Royalties Monument, 546 Ave W and 161 St W, Foothills County, AB T0L 1H0
Luxton Historical House, 206 Beaver St, Banff, AB T1L 1B4
Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, 111 Bear St, Banff, AB T1L 1A3
Canadian Grain Elevator Discovery Centre, 2119 19 Ave, Nanton, AB T0L 1R0
Jasper National Park Icefield Information Centre and Glacier Gallery, AB-93 Icefields Parkway, Jasper, AB T0E 1E0
Video
Coal Face, Canada, National Film Board.
Further Reading
Calgary Celebrating 100 Years of Parks, The City of Calgary, 2010.
More about Palliser Hotel at Skyrise Cities, and at Historic Hotels Worldwide
Calgary’s Old City Hall National Historic Site
SAIT’s Heritage Hall National Historic Site
A history of Calgary’s Hudson’s Bay Building
Forest Lawn’s History
Shaganappi Point Golf Course celebrates 100 years, City of Calgary
Leitch Collieriers Provincial Historic Site
Nordegg Discovery Centre, Nordegg National Historic Site
Coleman National Historic Site
Profile of Samuel Drumheller
“Calgary goes ‘oil crazy’ after Dingman discovery,” Calgary Herald.
Reader Rock Garden National Historic Site
Calgary’s Historic Boulevards, Calgary Heritage Initiative
Bridgeland-Riverside’s Vacant Lot Garden
A history of The Calgary Zoo, Calgary Heritage Initiative
History of Hydro Power, Alberta Government
History of Coal, Alberta Government
Conventional Oil in Alberta, Alberta Government
A History of Rideau Roxboro
History of Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, City of Calgary
Currie Barracks National Historic Site
“Glenmore Dam cleaned up Calgary’s murky water”, Calgary Herald
Inside the Opening of the Prince of Wales Hotel, Glacier Park Collection
Alberta’s Grain Elevators: A brief history of a prairie icon, Alberta Government
“On Feb 28, 1929 Eaton’s opened in Calgary,” Calgary Herald
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