Fort Calgary

Although fur traders such as David Thompson and Peter Fidler may have passed through the area now occupied by the sprawling city of Calgary in the late 18th or early 19th century, the first permanent establishment to be called Calgary was established in 1875 by the North West Mounted Police (now Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP). The NWMP had been formed after the notorious Cypress Hills Massacre to go into the North-West Territories (now Alberta & Saskatchewan) to shut down the whiskey trade, which was seen as being the cause of the massacre. After closing the notorious Fort Whoop-Up (near Lethbridge, Alberta) in 1874, the NWMP established Fort Macleod. In the summer of 1875,  NWMP  Col. Macleod sent Inspector Brisebois north, where he established a fort at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers. Originally dubbed Fort Brisebois, Col. Macleod soon had the fort re-named Fort Calgary, after a place in his native Scotland. He explained that Calgary meant "cool running water" , which he felt was appropriate for that area (actually, calgary means "bay farm"). Today, the re-created Fort Calgary and associated interpretive centre focus on the early history of Calgary.

The new fort quickly attracted the attention of other people already in the area. Father Albert Lacombe, a Catholic priest who had been in Alberta for twenty years, established a mission to the Blackfoot on the Elbow River in today's Mission District (aka Rouleauville). And Methodist Rev. John McDougall, who in 1873 had established a mission to the Stoneys in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, started to hold Sunday services at the NWMP barracks; by 1877 he had a church nearby. The I.G. Baker Company of Benton, Montana, who had actually constructed Fort Calgary under contract to the NWMP, followed it up by building themselves a trading post near the NWMP barracks. Their lead was quickly followed by the Hudson's Bay Company, who relocated close to  Fort Calgary from their existing trading post on the Bow River in the Rocky Mountain foothills. Two farmers were also already in the area when the NWMP arrived; Sam Livingstone was in the Glenmore area (his farm is now under Glenmore Lake, the city's reservoir), while John Glenn had a farm in the south part of Calgary, near what is now Midnapore. Glenn also was responsible for the first irrigation project in  Western Canada; in 1879 he dug a ditch to divert water from Fish Creek to 15 acres of oats, barley and vegetables.

Railway Days

The arrival of the railway, in 1883, meant a huge change. WIth the rail line, Fort Calgary area was now readily accessible to the rest of Canada, and thousands of settlers and businessmen flooded the area. Just over a year later, Calgary was officially incorporated as a town, with a population of 500. After completion of the cross-Canada railway at Craigellachie, B.C. in 1885, many railway workers, including Chinese workers, settled in Calgary. Today, Calgary has Canada's third largest Chinatown.

On 7 Nov. 1886, a fire devastated the new town, destroying many buildings in the downtown area. Local businessmen rebuilt using fireproof sandstone from nearby quarries; this practice earned Calgary the nickname of the "Sandstone City", because up until the First World War, many commercial and public buildings (including Old City Hall, built 1911) were made of sandstone.

On 1 Jan. 1894, Calgary officially became a city, with a population of over 3,500.  Its economy was primarily agricultural, based first on ranching and later on farming. (The prestigious Ranchmen's Club was established in 1891.)  In 1912, the erection of the Canadian Pacific Railway's Ogden Shops repair and maintenance facility proved to be another economic boon, lalong with the construction of the CPR's Palliser Hotel, which was completed in 1914 for nearly $2 million. For 50 years, the 300 room hotel dominated the Calgary skyline, and it continues to be a local landmark. The CPR also benefited the area in a third way, when they began a major irrigation project to help bring water to its lands in southeast Alberta, spending over $18 million in so doing, and making Calgary the headquarters for their irrigation operations. Today, the CPR's head office is in Calgary.

The Birth of an Institution 

Troubled by the rising ascendancy of farming over ranching, four Calgary ranchers (A.J. McLean, A.E. Cross, Pat Burns, and George Lane) bankrolled the first Calgary Stampede in 1912. It was a huge event, the brainchild of American promoter Guy Weadick, with $20,000 in rodeo prizes, a new rodeo event (steer wrestling), and 500 head of rodeo stock were brought in especially.  The Stampede was meant to be a one-time event, and for a while it was. A special "Victory Stampede" was held after the end of the First World War, in 1919. But from 1913 onwards, there was an annual Calgary Industrial Exhibition, which was primarily an agricultural fair. In 1923, the western-themed Stampede, with its rodeo events, returned once more, and was combined with the exhibition. From then on, the official name of the event has been the "Calgary Exhibition and Stampede".

First Oil Boom

In May 1914, after two years of drilling,  Dingman No. 1 started to produce natural gas in Turner Valley. This was not the first oil or gas well to be found in southern Alberta, but it was the first one to start an economic boom. Hundreds of people went to see the well, and in Calgary crowds formed to buy stock in the newly-formed oil companies. However, this boom was considerably dampened by the outbreak of World War I; by 1918, only ten wells in Turner Valley were producing. In 1924, an exciting new natural gas find revitalised the field. A natural gas pipeline connected the area to Calgary and the state-of-the-art refinery which had recently been completed there. This consolidated Calgary's position as the place where oil companies had their offices, so that when oil was found outside Edmonton in 1947, the oil business managers and their support staff continued to be based in Calgary. This, combined with the fact that Edmonton had been made the provincial capital in 1905, firmly established the ongoing friendly rivalry between the two cities, often called "the Battle of Alberta".