Imagine by Joey Stewart
“The Big Boom”
It was 1906, Calgary was in the midst of the biggest boom it had ever seen since the railway was built through the centre of Calgary in 1883. Thomas Jackson was a rancher who owned land between the Richmond Road to Discovery Ridge. The boom had started in 1890 and lasted until the beginning of the First World War in 1914. There was more work than workers. Calgary was desperate. Jackson had an idea!
He wrote to the newspapers in Scotland and Ireland trumpeting that Canada was the place to build a future; and they came in droves. He carved up a portion of his land into two communities. He called one Glengarry to attract the Scots and the other, Killarney to attract the Irish.
At the time, Calgary’s boundary was at 14 Street, where the prestigious neighbourhood of Mount Royal is where the richest of the rich lived and to this day, still do.
Glengarry and Killarney weren’t even a part of Calgary; the first plan for the suburbs were registered in 1906 and formally annexed in 1910. It rapidly evolved from a frontier ranching outpost into a bustling, modern metropolis of 50,000 people by 1914. A population increase of over 1,000% between 1901 and 1911 had turned into a thriving commercial, agricultural, and railway hub in the west. The City was a distribution centre going in all four directions as Alberta rapidly developed.
Jackson named Glengarry the neighbourhood that would run south from 17 Avenue to 26 Avenue and east from 37 Street to 24 Street, now known as Crowchild Trail. He thought the Scots would congregate there. He named Killarney the neighbourhood that would house the Irish south from 26 Avenue to the street that would become known as Richmond Road, which was formerly the trail the Indigenous used to get to their land on the western edge of Calgary.
When I walk around the streets of Killarney and Glengarry I see the effects of that boom. There is a beautiful brick house at 2201- 26 Street that was built by a dentist in 1912 that is reminiscent of the architecture of the day. Sam Whelan and Ken Kotkas have lived there for 25 years and know that they are only the fifth family who have ever lived in that house including, which CBC person’s dog scratched the back door! There is a doppelgänger of this house in Mount Royal. Across 21 Avenue, the dentist built another house at 2710 21 Avenue for his son; it still stands in impeccable condition.
The house to the south of the big brick house at 2205 26 St was built in 1917 by Mr. And Mrs. RV Campbell. Ray and Heidi Leather are only the third family to live in the house that has the original stained-glass windows and fireplace that they still use and is representative of the architecture near the end of the First World War.
It is more modest. Ray and Heidi Leather have lived there for 40 years. They have the photo album of the Campbell family including a photo of Mr Campbell and their son returning from his service at the end of the Second World War. What a beautiful memorial that connects them so strongly to their home!
At the time, there was a sandstone quarry in the Sunnyside community. Land on the north side of the river was too expensive for many miners, and they built their homes in Glengarry, that still stand, and they took the Centre Street Bridge, constructed in 1915, across the river to work in those mines. Downtown Calgary is filled with fabulous sandstone buildings, one of which is the Grain Exchange Building on 9 Avenue built in 1909.
So, when you look around the neighbourhood, imagine yourself as Thomas Jackson, riding the range, herding cattle or being like Nora Arnold, and others who had the courage to make Killarney and Glengarry home on the stark prairie over the past 120 years. As someone who arrived only 62 years ago, I am so grateful that Thomas Jackson wrote those letters.
Photo Credits: The Campbell Family Album, Joey Stewart
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