Celebrating Calgary 150 – Sandstone City, Part One

Welcome! The Calgary Heritage Initiative presents a series of articles throughout 2025 commemorating the 150th anniversary of the construction of Fort Calgary at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers, an important meeting place for people for millennia. Each month we’ll present one era in Calgary’s history.

Sandstone City

1885 to 1900

Access to global markets for the Calgary area’s farms and ranches, and more inhabitants arriving on the railway, saw the Town of Calgary expand rapidly after the Last Spike in 1885.

Inglewood

Railway construction arrived in Calgary in August 1883. The CPR station was expected to be built next to Fort Calgary and near the trading posts and settlements along the Elbow River. The area to the east of the fort became Inglewood, Calgary’s first neighbourhood, with Atlantic Avenue (today’s 9th Avenue) poised to be the main street of the new town.

In 1892, A.E. Cross constructed Calgary Brewing & Malting Company further down 9th Ave. This was the year the NWT Council lifted prohibition. The brewery was Alberta’s first and it gave the area its first name, Brewery Flats.

Inglewood was originally the name of Major James Walker’s homestead at today’s Bird Sanctuary. When the city annexed the area in 1907, it was known as the Inglewood Addition, with the name Inglewood officially adopted for the neighbourhood in 1911.

View of Ramsay and Inglewood districts, Calgary, ca. 1913-1915 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). Taken from Scotsman’s Hill, looking east.

So why isn’t Downtown Calgary located where Inglewood is today?

Because the federal government allowed the CPR to subdivide its land into a townsite. CPR’s lands were located west of the fort, and it proceeded to lay out streets and lots for sale around its railway station. Many packed up and moved downtown – “two hundred tar-papered shacks, half a hundred unpretentious wooden buildings, and a few log structures”. The post office moved across the river too, sealing the status of today’s downtown core.

Downtown

Felix McHugh constructed the first private building in the area, on what is now 8th Avenue. The building served as Calgary’s first jail and was the first meeting place of Calgary’s town council. The McHugh family also homesteaded the area known today as McHugh Bluff.

In 1896, brother J.J. built a home in today’s Mission and completed in 1901 an addition to it that’s a rare example of a Queen Anne Revival style home. It’s the oldest known home on its original location in the neighbourhood.

Residence of J. J. McHugh, Calgary, 1903 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). House nicknamed ‘Glenwood’.

In 1884, the Church of the Redeemer opened, a small wooden frame building and the first Anglican church in Calgary. At Midnapore on John Glenn’s land, another church opened the next year, St. Paul’s, which is built in the Carpenter variation of the Gothic Revival style.

It’s the earliest surviving Anglican church in southern Alberta. Samuel Shaw was its organist and his wife Helen served tea after services. Its bell is thought to be among the oldest in Canada, having been made in the time of Henry VIII. It was one of two bells in Thelveton Church in England that was sold off and eventually donated to St. Paul’s.

St Paul’s Anglican Church, Calgary, 2008 (WillowGoodf, via Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

Along with the arrival of the railway came the town’s very own newspaper. In August 1883 the Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate and General Advertiser started publishing from a tent. Thomas Braden, a school teacher, and his friend, printer Andrew Armour, started the paper with funding by women’s hat maker Frances Ann Chandler of Toronto. It was published weekly from a handpress that had arrived on the first train to Calgary on August 16th.

Just over a year later, the Herald moved into a shack and a few months later was printing as the Calgary Daily Herald. News was reported to Calgarians from bulletins received from train passengers.

Speaking of trains, in 1886, the first scheduled transcontinental passenger train arrived. To greet it, a detachment of NWMP officers ceremonially stood nearby. One place visitors could stay was the Royal Hotel, built in 1885.

Royal Hotel, Calgary, 1890 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). Sketch from ‘The Western World’, published by Acton Burrows.

Calgary was starting to expand and with it came wealth and several homes that stand to this day. In 1886, John Gerow Van Wart constructed a home in Inglewood. He had started a goods store just as the railway arrived – he even advertised in the first edition of the Herald. Van Wart Residence is a Georgian style home similar to the houses popular in New Brunswick, the home province of the Van Warts.

Van Wart Residence, April 2025 (Anthony Imbrogno)

Elections

James Reilly began circulating pamphlets in January 1884 to announce a public meeting at the Methodist Church. The meeting was to discuss the construction of a bridge over the Elbow River to connect the area’s settlements to the CPR station. It also discussed forming a Citizens Committee to represent the 400 people who had become Calgarians. It would do so until the town could be officially incorporated.

Calgary, Alberta, 1884 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). From ‘Canadian Illustrated News’. View from east of the Elbow River. I. G. Baker store, foreground.

After a vote, Major Walker became the settlement’s first mayor. Upon meeting Lt.-Governor Edgar Dewdney of the North West Territories, discussions began to determine a Calgary member on the NWT Council. Calgary also received a grant for the East Elbow Bridge, also known as the Barracks Bridge. It was constructed of wood and was located just north of the CPR bridge over the Elbow.

Bridges over Elbow River at Fort Calgary, Alberta (East Elbow Bridge seen behind the railway bridge), ca. 1887-1889 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)

A month later, residents organized for a school and raised $125. Bayton Hall was a small log cabin and it opened on February 6th with about 17 students taught by John William Costello. However, one private school was not enough for the growing town. In 1885, the NWT Council created Lacombe Catholic school district along with a Protestant district.

Calgary was officially proclaimed an incorporated town on 27 November 1884 by Dewdney.

On December 3rd, Calgarians went to the polls to elect a mayor and four city councillors. George Murdoch won the race in a landslide, becoming the town’s first mayor. The next morning the new council met for the first time at Boynton Hall, but there was a double booking and they resumed across the street at Castle Mountain Billiard Hall and Saloon. It was later demolished to make way for the Queen’s Hotel in 1893, which itself was demolished for today’s Municipal Building.

Castle Mountain Billiard Hall on Stephen Avenue and 2nd Street SE, Calgary, 1885 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). The owner, Simon John Clarke, moved the building from east Calgary to this site in the spring of 1884. He replaced it with the Queen’s Hotel in 1892.

Queen’s Hotel, 8th Avenue and 2nd Street East, Calgary, 1892 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)

Walker went on to serve as Calgary’s first immigration officer and also was president of the Calgary District Agricultural Society. The society began as a volunteer effort to showcase Calgary as an agricultural centre for Alberta. It led an effort to secure federal lands used by the NWMP for grazing, which they used to hold Calgary’s first exhibition in 1886.

The International Seed Grain and Hay Exposition celebrated farmers and ranchers. It also partnered with the CPR to create railcars showcasing local produce. It travelled the country to advertise the region and demonstrate the ag-industry’s ingenuity.

International Seed Grain and Hay Exposition. Art by Stan Phelps, located on the south wall of the Agriculture Building, Stampede Park, Calgary. Installed 1998 (Calgary Stampede)

The success of the exhibition and its location near Calgary’s expanding commercial and industrial areas saw the grounds develop into a residential neighbourhood. It was named Victoria Park in 1889 in honour of Her Majesty, who had encouraged exhibitions as a way of bringing people together in celebration. Queen Victoria is also known as the Mother of Confederation.

View of Victoria Park area, Calgary, ca. 1912-1914 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). Showing Calgary Exhibition and Stampede grandstand in background.

In 1894, Haultain School was built and named after NWT Premier Fredrick Haultain. The larger building was destroyed by fire in 1964, leaving the smaller structure as a Provincial Historic site for its Romanesque style, which was modelled after Toronto City Hall (ca.1889). It was Calgary’s first sandstone school and the first with electricity and running water.

Haultain school, Calgary, 1940-1941 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)

The Town also got to work providing safety services.

It supplemented the NWMP with a local constabulary, first headed by Jack Campbell, with John (Jack) S. Ingram serving as the first Chief Constable (he was also the first police chief in Winnipeg). He went on to manage The Palace and The Royal hotels before becoming police chief in Great Falls, MT. The fire department, originally called the Calgary Hook, Ladder and Bucket Corps, was established in August 1885.

Despite the presence of the NWMP and constabulary, Cow Town was like any new settlement in the Old West. Councillor Simon John Clarke owned and operated the Castle Mountain Billiard Hall and Saloon, which sold liquor and offered gambling and prostitution despite being illegal in the North West Territories.

When the Mounties investigated without a warrant late in 1885, Clarke chased them off, only for the officers to return with a warrant to arrest Clarke. Mayor Murdock objected. With the support of residents who had met at Boynton Hall, he left for Ottawa to have Clarke’s conviction overturned.

8th Avenue, Calgary, 1884 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). From ‘The Graphic’. Boynton Hall, large building to right of centre.

The dispute between Clarke and the legal system worsened in the meantime. The editor of the Calgary Herald was dismissed from his other role as clerk of the court for supporting Clarke in the paper’s editorials. He was eventually jailed for his opposition. There were also accusations of fraud committed by Murdoch even though he was out east at the time.

Despite being disqualified by the court, Murdoch won the January 1886 civic election against James Reilly. Both Murdoch and Reilly claimed to be mayor, with both holding council meetings. Word reached Ottawa of these political and legal shenanigans and an investigation was launched. Ottawa ruled that the court had overstepped its authority and erred in its ruling. A new civic election was ordered for 3 November 1886, which George C. King won.

You’ll remember King, the first NWMP officer to cross the Bow River. He left the NWMP in 1877 to manage I.G. Baker’s store. The next year he married Louise Munro, becoming the first couple officially married in Calgary. He went on to run G.C. King grocery and was postmaster from 1885 until 1921.

Fire

To use a modern expression, the dumpster fire that was Calgary’s early politics was soon overwhelmed by a real fire.

The Great Calgary Fire of 1886 started on November 7th along the back wall of the Parish and Son flour and feed store on today’s 9th Ave near Centre St. Because of the fast pace of construction around the new CPR station, the surrounding buildings were made with wood. The fire spread quickly, destroying 18 buildings for a loss of $100,000 (about $3.5 million today). Thankfully, there were no injuries or deaths.

Big fire on 9th Avenue SE, Calgary, 1886 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). I.S. Freeze, J. Paterson, and Grand Central Hotel buildings in middleground. Contents of various buildings piled in foreground.

The prevalence of flammable material was not the only reason for the fire’s severity. The political and legal wranglings over the prior year had severe impacts on the ability of the local government to provide services, one of which was a fire brigade. As a result, the town struggled to respond to the fire at its outbreak, giving it time to spread.

A big part of the problem was the town’s inability to pay for its new chemical fire engine. When the fire started, the engine was impounded at the CPR’s storage facility. Firefighters had to break in to retrieve it to fight the fire. In the meantime, firefighters and townsfolk rushed to establish a fire break, with Murdoch helping to demolish his own harness shop to create it.

Town Council responded to the fire by constructing a wood-framed fire hall, which opened in May 1887. As Calgary continued to grow, the two-storey concrete and masonry No.1 Fire Hall was built in 1911. Its diagonal design was meant to efficiently access the street and its tower was used to dry the hoses. Calgary’s first full-time fire chief, James “Cappy” Smart, headed the fire department until 1933.

Fire Headquarters, Calgary Fire Department, Calgary, 1912 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)

As well, the Town focused on flammable construction materials. It passed a bylaw ordering all large downtown buildings to use sandstone, which was readily available from quarries at Paskapoo Hills and other sites, such as at the northern end of Scotchman’s Hill. Sixteen quarries eventually operated around Calgary and by 1890 over half of the city’s skilled trades were stonecutters or masons.

From then on, Calgary was transformed from a town settlement into a more permanent establishment, a Sandstone City on the Canadian prairie.

Sandstone quarry on Elbow River near North-West Mounted Police barracks, Calgary, 1899 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)

Stephen Avenue

You can see the results of the fire and subsequent bylaw on Stephen Avenue. Early buildings include the Lineham Block (ca.1886, 106 8th Ave SW) and Imperial Bank Building (ca.1886, 100 8th Ave SE).

These buildings were constructed by I.G. Baker & Co. and local butchers, Dunn and Lineham. They were the first two sandstone buildings on 8th Ave and also became the locations of the first two chartered bank branches, the Bank of Montreal and Imperial Bank of Canada, respectively. With national banks present in Calgary, the city’s economy was on the map.

Imperial Bank building and adjoining blocks on 8th Avenue (Stephen Avenue), Calgary, 1903 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)

These two sandstone buildings were actually begun just prior to the fire. In fact, there’s only one complete pre-fire, wooden building on Stephen Ave today: T.C. Power & Bro. Block (ca.1885, 131 8th Ave SW).

T.C. Power was I.G. Baker’s rival and also based out of Fort Benton, MT. Its building in Calgary is in the Victorian Commercial style typical of the time. It’s built with wood in the balloon framing model, where long, straight studs run the full height of the building from foundation to roof. The building served as the location of the campaign office for R.B. Bennet’s provincial Conservative party during Alberta’s very first election in 1905. He would go on to become Prime Minister.

T.C. Power & Bro. Block, 131 8 Ave SW, October 2014 (Anthony Imbrogno)

Stephen Avenue, Calgary, ca. 1884-1885 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). East end looking east. Sparrow’s Meat Market is in right foreground and NWMP barracks in background at end of street. From west of McTavish (Centre Street).

The Lineham Block served as an example for further sandstone construction, including the purpose-built Calgary Herald Block (ca.1887, 113 8th Ave SW) and the Macnaghten Block (ca.1888, 109 8th Ave SW).

Francis A. Macnaghten was the son of the Baronet of County Antrim, Ireland. He arrived in Alberta to ranch in Bowness, he invested in Calgary Brewing & Malting Co. and he was a founding member of the Ranchmen’s Club along with members of the NWMP.

At one point, the Liberal Party of Canada’s meeting rooms were located on the second floor. While the Liberals were in power in Ottawa, the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were created in 1905. There’s no doubt important discussions about our province’s creation took place in those rooms when federal Interior Minister Clifford Sifton visited Calgary.

As you may have noticed, 8th Avenue was the centre of reconstruction after the fire. The area became Calgary’s first commercial core, known today as Stephen Avenue National Historic Site, a designation it received in 2002.

Cow on Stephen Avenue, Calgary, 1889 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)

Stephen Avenue is named after CPR President George Stephen. It’s a grand example of the central role of retail streets in Canada. These commercial and financial centres developed around train stations and provided services to the influx of residents and to the area’s expanding list of businesses and industries.

The commercial buildings of Stephen Ave are fine representations of the architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with Victorian, Neoclassical, Art Deco and Beaux-Arts elements. Many historic buildings in Calgary were demolished during the 1970s development boom, but moves by City Council and the province preserved Stephen Avenue, today a major tourist attraction and the beating heart of Downtown Calgary.

The Alberta Hotel (ca.1890, 801 1st St SW) is one of Stephen Ave’s jewels. Like our province, it’s named after Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter, Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, wife of the Marquess of Lorne. It was built in 1888 in Italianate style with local sandstone.

It boasted a 125-foot bar, the longest between Winnipeg and Vancouver. It’s Calgary’s oldest remaining hotel building and it served as a cultural reference point for Calgarians, their very own “Alberta Corner” for meeting up or watching the passers by.

View of Alberta Hotel, Calgary, 1893 (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection). Decorated for Dominion Day (perhaps?).

Another landmark was Knox Presbyterian Church (ca.1912, 506 4 St SW). The congregation originally met at the I.G. Baker building in Inglewood until a wooden church was built in 1883 with funds from Major Walker. When the railway moved their planned station westward, the church moved too, on skis across the frozen Elbow River.

In 1886, a stone church was built on the corner of Centre St and 7th Ave. This proved too small and a neo-Gothic Paskapoo sandstone church was constructed in 1912. Known as the “Cathedral of the West”, Knox United was one of Calgary’s tallest structures at the time and features one of Canada’s largest church organs.