Connecting Community Through Sports, Clubs, Recreation, and Leisure (Part 1)
This is an excerpt from the Hillhurst Sunnyside Historical Context paper, ‘Building Social and Community Life: Connecting community through Sports, Clubs, Recreation and Leisure (pp. 85 to 92). For more on the history of our neighbourhood, check out the full paper at https://www.hsca.ca/historical-context-paper.
In addition to the social role played by the early churches, recreation, and leisure – both formal and informal – figured prominently in the social life of residents. In March of 1911 the lands immediately west of Riley Park were donated to the City by the Riley family for Hillhurst Athletic Park (sourced from the Calgary Daily Herald, March 24, 1911). By 1912 a grandstand and bleachers were erected, and the existing Hillhurst Football club clubhouse/dressing cabins were moved to the playing field and enlarged. Ezra and Frank Riley organized the Hillhurst Football Club which won the Dominion Championship twice. Frank served as the club’s president Club from 1910 to 1922 and was an active promoter of rugby football in Calgary.
In 1912, Harriet Riley loaned her land nearby to the north and west (today’s St Andrews Heights) to be developed as Calgary’s second golf course, St Andrews Golf Club, named for the famous links course in Scotland and opened in May 1913. The club membership, which had free playing rights, grew rapidly (per research by Marg Mcready). Probably the most popular area for the neighbourhood, Riley Park, was a place for informal leisure and recreation in all seasons. The park was donated by Ezra Riley in 1910. Within two years it was cultivated and sown with grass, landscaped with flower beds and thousands of trees and shrubs, and had a wading pool for children. An early toboggan run on the hillside immediately north of the park was dismantled after the First World War, possibly to accommodate the land sale to the province for the technical institute. Another very popular informal winter activity was skating on the frozen sloughs, an activity that lasted well into the post-war period when the last slough was reclaimed for development.
Local fraternal lodges were also established early on. The Riley Hall in the Great West Trading Co building housed the Seventh Day Adventists, two orders of the Loyal Order of Lions and the King George Masonic Lodge No 59. As soon as the Ross Block was completed by William Ross in 1911, the Masons leased its new public hall next to the Hillhurst Pool Room. Members included pharmacist WC Black who was Chair in 1922 and Calgary’s mayor at the time, and Andrew Davidson (term 1929 to 1945) who lived north of the Bow.
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