The rail bed, the chug-chug-chug and screeching whistle of the steam locomotives are long gone, but the Mill Creek Trestle Bridge endures as a remnant of the first railway to cross the North Saskatchewan River more than 100 years ago.
Edmonton's 'Church Street,' more commonly known as 96th Street, was once cited by Ripley's Believe it or Not as having the largest concentration of churches in the world.
When its cornerstone was officially laid May 7th,1955, the Federal Public Building was acclaimed as a tribute to the trappers, pioneers and settlers whose zeal and vision established the first foundations of this community.
In a neighbourhood where the sound of progress the last 40 years has more often than not been the wrecking ball, it's remarkable that Oliver's historic apartment buildings have survived virtually intact.
The brick chimney stack just off Fort Road north of the Yellowhead Trail towers more than 30 metres (100-feet) above a barren field, a sentinel reminder of what was once one of the countrys most sophisticated packing plant buildings.
Built in 1912, the Beth Israel Synagogue is not only Edmontons first Synagogue, it is also the oldest Synagogue still standing between Winnipeg and Victoria.
Built in 1891, the Strathcona Hotel ranks as the oldest wood frame commercial building on Whyte Avenue. Constructed by the Calgary and Edmonton Railway Company
Swaddled in giant tarps and looking like some sort of a giant Meccano set wrapped up for the festive season, the northern half of Edmonton’s Low Level Bridge
As cities sprawl, they gobble up not only valuable wetlands and agricultural land, but also the buildings that were such a vital part of farming through the 20th century.
The City of Edmonton has added 23 more to the number of public and privately owned buildings proudly adorned with plaques from the Edmonton Historical Board.
Built in 1959 and moved (and nearly damaged) in 1964, the building that is today home to Salisbury United Church on Sherwood Park’s Broadmoor Boulevard
Strathcona was put on the map in 1891 when the Calgary and Edmonton Railway Company completed its line from Calgary to a terminus south of the banks of the North Saskatchewan River.
Built in 1927 as the modest home of an Alberta Avenue business owner, the James Rutherford House has been recommended for designation as a Municipal Historic Resource.
One hundred years ago, March 26th, 1909, members of All Saints Anglican Church met to discuss the need for a new place of worship in what was then called the “new west end.”
Seventy-five years after it was built, the log cabin at 9905 115th Street is facing an uncertain future. The prime location, with a spectacular view overlooking the North Saskatchewan River valley,
From Edmonton’s earliest days, theatres have been popular places of entertainment and social interaction. As early as 1879, formal drama readings and recitations
It began as the hopeful idea of some like-minded people who wanted to spread the word and share their enthusiasm for something special and distinctive.
For a northern city, where summer is just five months of bad ice skating, Edmonton has produced a remarkable number of very competitive track and field athletes.
My memories of the Strand Theatre are so vivid that I cannot believe its been more than 25 years since the grand old house of vaudeville and film was brought down by a misguided quest for progress.
When Howard & McBride opened their new funeral parlour in July 1929, the Edmonton Bulletin newspaper proclaimed it to be, "the last word in arrangements for comfort."
It began, like many great things do, with a dream. Thomas Vernon Newlove had a dream to form a schoolboys band that would become one of the finest in the country.
Fort Saskatchewan is taking the first steps to build a replica of the city’s namesake wooden outpost first erected by the North West Mounted Police in 1875.
In November, the Edmonton Historical Board unveiled its 2008 Plaques Awards, honouring nine significant city buildings. In the second of a three-part series
In Edmonton’s formative years, before the popularization of the motor vehicle, many members of the workforce preferred to live near their place of employment.
When Imperial Oil's Leduc No. 1 blew in 62 years ago, it catapulted the community 20 kilometres south of Edmonton into a time of heady change and unprecedented growth.
In the first decade of the 20th century, six men served time in the mayor’s chair. These pioneer politicians ranged from businessmen to lawyers, a school principal,
Built just after stock markets collapsed and in the early days of the Great Depression, the quaint house at 11220 62 Street survives as one of the few residences constructed in Edmonton during the 1930s.
Imperial Oil began 1947 with not one producing oil well in the Edmonton area but, by the end of the year, its Leduc-Woodbend field had gushed forth with 400,000 barrels of oil.
When construction of the Canada Permanent Building was announced in 1910, it was billed as "Edmonton's first fireproof bank." Now, precisely 100 years later,
Founded in 1911 as manufacturers of high-grade overalls, shirts and pants for settlers, miners and the working men in Western Canada, the Great Western Garment Company ended up operating for 93 years in Edmonton.
Built in 1912 and 1913 as the Edmonton Barracks for the North-West Mounted Police, the battlement and brick complex at what is now 9530-9542 101 A Avenue
The commodious building at the northwest corner of 103rd Street and 102nd Avenue stands as part of one of the most ambitious downtown revitalization projects of the 1970s.
A 50-year-old apartment building overlooking the North Saskatchewan River Valley is on track to become Edmonton’s youngest protected historic building.
More than 100 years after the first houses were built on it, Saskatchewan Drive survives as a time capsule of early Strathcona’s affluent upper middle class.
In the second part of our coverage, this week's column profiles a landmark theatre and two residences that were recognized for their particular place in Edmonton history.
Edmonton was struggling to climb out of the depression of the 1930s and war had been declared in Europe, and yet the Edmonton Public School Board managed to scrape together the money
Named for pioneer settler Donald Ross, the area known as Rossdale is rich in human history. It was here that Edmonton began life as a fur trading post in 1801,
For an architect, the period between the end of the Second World War and the 1960s was a frantic time. Edmonton’s population more than doubled in the 20 years starting in 1945,
Among the entrepreneurs who arrived in Strathcona in its formative years were James and Robert Douglas, brothers who erected the Douglas Block in 1912 at 10442 Whyte Avenue.
More than a century after it was constructed to serve the hard-metal needs of a rapidly growing city, the building that was the long-time home to the Edmonton Iron Works
It was in 1933, the depths of the Great Depression, that Edmonton’s “palatial new baseball plant” was officially opened in the lap of Rossdale near 102nd Street and 96th Avenue.
Faced with a soaring student population in the rapidly growing West End, the Edmonton Public School Board moved forward in 1955 with plans to construct a new high school.
Last month, city council voted to historically designate one of the few single-family residences that bears the design stamp of internationally renowned Alberta architect Douglas Cardinal.
The Royal Glenora Club is celebrating 50 years of operation this spring with a history project, a gala members event on April 30th, and a star-studded ice show May 20th through 22nd.
Walter Scott Robertson was an avid hunter who first came to the Edmonton area from Eastern Canada in 1879. He was on a quest for buffalo but their population was already decimated,
The sound of “Fore!” has been heard in the North Saskatchewan River valley for more than 100 years. The Victoria Golf Course started operations with seven holes in 1907,
The story of Highlands Junior High School reaches back more than 100 years to the formation of the Edmonton Highlands School District No. 2292 in September 1910.
“Westmount, Edmonton’s beauty spot,” proclaimed an advertisement from the Great West Land Company in the October 8, 1909 edition of the Edmonton Bulletin.
It was 20 years ago that Dave Robb, the editor and manager of Real Estate Weekly, agreed to let me write a regular column on heritage. “Do you think there are enough old buildings around to run it for a year or so?” Dave asked.
When it opened its doors in 1934 in the depths of the Great Depression, the Alberta Protestant Home for Children was a little place of hope for needy and forsaken children.
A series of photos at the City of Edmonton Archives shows streets and houses in the Cloverdale neighbourhood inundated by water in the great flood of 1915.
Today it is called the Jasper East Village but a century ago, that part of downtown northeast of Jasper Avenue 97th Street was the heart of the rapidly growing city of Edmonton.
Constructed in 1909, the Jasper Block was one of the commercial blocks built at the western edge of downtown during the frantic building boom leading up to World War I.
He has been called Edmonton's pioneer "Dirty Harry." For his part in leading the famous vigilante committee in 1882, Matthew McCauley has forever etched a particular place in our community's history.
As the University of Alberta examines the feasibility of constructing student residences and a parkade over a chunk of North Garneau it calls the East Campus Village, the history of the imperilled neighbourhood is gaining new attention.
According to the Geographic Board of Canada's Place-Names of Alberta, published in 1928, Beverly was named by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1904 after Beverly township, Wentworth County, Ontario.
He worked in Edmonton as an architect for barely a decade early in the 20th century, but a lifetime later, Roland W. Lines mark on our city remains indelible.
Before the railway, oil and gas, lumber and before widespread farming, the steamboats arrived in Edmonton and, for a little place hanging on by its fingernails, they were exactly what it needed.
When fire swept through the Hecla Block early the morning of May 15th, 1994, it appeared that the three-storey apartments 80 years of life might well be at an end.
Built in 1935, the Oblats Maison Provinciale (the Oblate Provincial House) provides a connection to the first Catholic missionaries in the Canadian West.
It may have been called the Fifth Street Bridge when it was built in 1912/13, but when I was a kid, I knew it as "the bridge that made that really cool noise."
One hundred years after St. Peters Lutheran Church was officially constituted, a building associated with the congregation has been declared a Municipal Historic Resource.
When King Edward School opened its doors to students March 9th, 1914, the Edmonton Bulletin newspaper was moved to note that its new shower baths "will be a novelty to many of the children, who never before saw hot water come down like rain."
Its no wonder the Canadian Consolidated Rubber Company Warehouse was trumpeted as one of Edmontons most fireproof buildings when it was erected in late 1913.
In the late 1800s and the early years of the 20th century, Edmontons North Saskatchewan River valley was known more for its industry than its recreational bounty.
San Francisco has the Golden Gate, Sydney, Australia has the Harbour Bridge, Vancouver has its Lions Gate. Edmonton? Why, weve got the High Level, of course!
Ninety-five springs ago, the sound of hammers and saws reverberated across the North Saskatchewan River valley as the first houses in a fresh subdivision were taking shape.
Peggy O’Connor Farnell’s Glenora of the early 20th century was a magical place. “Goodness, it was the edge of town! There were no roads, no services and it was bush from our place west to 142nd Street.”
From a 16-storey vaulted dome to terrazzo marble flooring, hand-carved oak doors and stained glass windows, the Alberta Legislature is a dazzling piece of architectural theatre.
Robertson’s Hall, the Thistle Rink, the Empire, the Opera House, the Dominion and the Pantages are all gone, and yet their place in Edmonton theatre history is indelibly etched.
A century and more ago, proximity to easy transportation and raw materials made the North Saskatchewan River valley ideal for industries such as lumber, coal mining and brick making.
Named for Strathcona pioneer and school trustee Robert Ritchie, the school at 9750 74 Avenue was opened in January 1913 to serve the area’s rapidly growing student population.
Fifteen years ago, a century after William Orsman and the Ritchie Brothers built it in 1893, Alberta’s oldest surviving flour mill received a new lease on life.
On May 12, 1912, the Hudson’s Bay Company placed a good chunk of its considerable Edmonton land holdings on the market. The flood of more than 1,500 lots of prime real estate stoked a building frenzy
In 1920, with the release of millions of young men from the daily shadow of death brought by the First World War, the world commenced one of its fastest moving decades of the 20th century.
This year’s Edmonton Historical Board’s Recognition Awards, the 33rd annual, salute three individuals and a trio of organizations for their contribution to building the city and helping its citizens appreciate our precious heritage.
The neighbourhood known as Edmonton’s original west end was born in the late 19th century, but it was the coming of the rails that really put it on the map.
When developer William Magrath paid $20,000 in 1911 to have the city’s streetcar line extended east on Pine Avenue to service his exclusive new community of The Highlands,
Eva McKitrick’s connection to Edmonton goes back to the community’s formative years in the 19th century and now her legacy is reaching into the 21st century.
One hundred years ago, October 30, 1908, the Edmonton Radial Railway commenced operations with a modest fleet of two electrically-powered streetcars built by the Ottawa Car Company Ltd.
Built in the days after the First World War, the house that is now Strathcona County’s centre for arts and culture was built by Maurice and Eliza Smeltzer.
Built by coal miner Otto Reiher in 1937, this little cottage at 11845 52nd Street offers an excellent example of a typical building of its time and place.
Built in 1946 in the International style of architecture, this rectangular, flat-roofed Glenora home was the long time home for the family of Louis Hyndman,
For more than 30 years, the Palace of Sweets was a place of confectionery heaven. The retail candy store opened in the midst of the Second World War in the historic Chisholm Block,
In 1911, pioneer Strathcona pharmacist Hugh Duncan commissioned local architect and builder John Sanford to design and construct him a house on 104th Street,
Built in three phases, in 1925, 1931 and 1946, St. Francis of Assisi Friary and St. Anthony’s College provide a physical connection to the Franciscans’ mission which started operations in Edmonton more than 100 years ago.
Built in 1922 in the modest Craftsman style, the house at 11530 95 A Street is an excellent Edmonton example of a 1920's middle income single family dwelling.
If city council had listened to a consultant’s advice nearly 40 years ago, tens of thousands of people would be stuck with riding buses or navigating impossibly congested roads.
The story of McDougall United Church stretches back to the earliest days of Methodist history in 1840, when Reverend Robert Rundle arrived in Edmonton.
In the early days of the 20th century, Saskatchewan Drive was an exclusive address, and it was where Strathcona’s elite preferred to locate their homes.
On February 21st, alumni from as far back as the 1920s joined Mayor Stephen Mandel, Alberta Education Minister Dave Hancock and many others to mark the 100th anniversary of Norwood School.
Now it is the western flank of what is considered the heart of the city. But 100 years ago, the area around 124th Street and Jasper Avenue was Edmonton's original west end.
While Alberta was in its infancy a little more than 100 years ago, the automobile was being born - a marvellous medley of moving, whirring and wheezing parts
Built around 1909, the George Harcourt Residence was one of the first residences to be constructed in the University of Alberta area neighbourhood which came to be known in 1910 as Windsor Park.
Members of the Edmonton Board of Trade decided in early 1892 that Edmonton should be incorporated as a town, and so in February of that year, the hamlet with its population of 700 did just that.
War was over, and, with the release of millions of soldiers from the daily shadow of death brought by the First World War, the world commenced one of its fastest moving decades of the 20th century.
The city is moving to protect the Garneau Theatre, one of Edmonton’s great surviving examples of early modernism, the movement that gave rise to Moderne or art deco architecture.
The stock market crash of October 1929 pulled the rug out from under the economy, and the commodity-dependent Canadian west felt the impact immediately.
In the depths of the Great Depression, Edmontonians looked to one of the city’s most unrestrained characters as the man to get the community back on its feet.
One hundred years ago, a blacksmith named Edward Looby constructed a building at 10336 Jasper Avenue. But the Looby Block’s connection with Edmonton history
Alex Decoteau lived barely 30 years, yet he ran up an amazing record of achievement, contribution and sacrifice. He was one of the city’s earliest track champions,
Known best as one of the founders of country music radio giant CFCW in 1954, Hal Yerxa has a place in history for being part of another remarkable day in history.
Built in 1912 as the Edmonton Stock Pavilion, and pressed into service as a hockey rink when the Thistle burned down in 1913, the building that came to be known as the Edmonton Gardens
Last month, the Edmonton Historical Board unveiled its 2009 Plaques Awards, honouring four significant city buildings, along with three neighbourhoods.
Later this month, Dayanandan and Selvanayigee Naidoo are planning to open their new restaurant, Narayanni’s, in the former home of Arndt’s Machine Shop
Fort Edmonton Park has announced plans to build a scaled-down replica of the Capitol Theatre, one of Edmonton’s most beloved film houses of the 20th century.
Constructed in 1913 by Strathcona businessman William Henry Sheppard, the Gothic-style beer castle that most recently served as the Molson Brewery is a richly historic part of Edmonton.
His name was John Michaels, but everybody knew him as Mike. He was only ten years old when he began selling papers on New York’s Lower East Side in 1901.
When Edmonton was just a toddler of a town, the discards of the day were dumped right next to the river at the bottom of Grierson Hill between 94th and 98th Streets.
Built in 1926 and clad with rare clinker bricks, the Frederick S. Jones Residence is a distinctive Craftsman style bungalow in Edmonton’s Calder neighbourhood at 13067 115th Street.
Like a sonic boom, the age of cinema roared into Edmonton in the late 1920s with the coming of sound. Citizens flocked by the thousands to watch – and hear! – the “talkies.”
Originally known as Fourth Street, 104th Street became the heart of Edmonton’s warehouse district after the Hudson’s Bay Company put the remainder of its land holdings
Resource-rich and bursting with entrepreneurial opportunity, early Edmonton was a place where settlers came to start a new life and make their fortune.
If you wanted to run a successful eatery in Edmonton in the early to mid-20th century, the recipe was simple. Bright lights, tough-as-nails counters, leatherette covered booths,
Built in 1935 for longtime Edmonton auctioneer William Wallace Howe, the house at 10237 149th Street was designed in an eclectic style with Moderne influences.
Built between 1911 and 1914, Athabasca, Assiniboia and Pembina were the first halls of learning at the University of Alberta, which began operations in 1908.
Next year marks the 100th anniversary for Queen Alexandra School. The venerable building, at 7730 106th Street, opened its doors in 1906 as Duggan Street School.
The Morning Bulletin reported it was a beautiful autumn afternoon when a monument "erected by the Beverly veterans institute in the memory of their comrades fallen in the war"
In a 1927 tribute to Frank Oliver, the Edmonton Bulletin offered, There is no doubt that (he) can be fairly reckoned as the most outstanding pioneer of Alberta.
In the days before in-home washers and dryers, many Edmonton residents got their clothes cleaned by laundries which offered pick-up and delivery services.
Jesse Locksley Jones was one of Edmonton's most accomplished athletes and when he qualified for the 1923 Olympic Games in Paris, it was a huge achievement.
Few Edmonton buildings can match the history, the impact or the long record of service of the Prince of Wales Armoury. Built in 1914-15 on a 17-acre site as the Edmonton Drill Hall to meet the needs of the infantry,
Some of the most interesting trails of discovery writing this column every week begin with questions from readers. Like a query from Michelene Day, who wrote: Did you ever research an old building located on 97 Street and 107 Avenue?
The nearly hundred year old house that stands at 11217 97th Street is an unusual one for Edmonton, built atop a stone foundation and with a widows walk, two-toned brick and double gable dormers.
Built by an early Edmonton blacksmith and a man called Edmonton’s “Merchant Prince,” the Kelly and Ramsey Buildings offer a fascinating connection to the formative years of the city.
The City of Edmonton has added 23 more to the number of public and privately owned buildings proudly adorned with plaques from the Edmonton Historical Board.
Concordia University College has come a long way from a place originally intended to prepare men for preaching and instruction at Lutheran churches and schools.
It’s been 60 years since a group of men, working in a windswept field just south of today’s Devon, pulled the cork out of Central Alberta’s bottle of oil prosperity.
The lure of land to farm, resources to mine and jobs to hold propelled Edmonton into a frantic period of growth in the early years of the 20th century.
One hundred years ago, the Canadian Pacific Railway was building its new station in Strathcona, which it had decided to turn into a dominant divisional point.
Propelled by agricultural expansion, a burgeoning commercial aviation industry and the discovery of oil in the Northwest Territories and the Viking gas field,
When the influenza epidemic that was rippling around the world reached Edmonton in 1918, it wasn’t long before the hospitals in the city were bursting at the seams.
Dame Eliza Chenier co-owned the Strathcona Hotel between 1912 and 1923, along with Joseph A. Beauchamp, and the pair also shared a duplex at 9926 and 9928 112th Street.
It’s the Glenrose Rehabilitation Research Centre now, but when the two-storey brick building at the corner of 101st Street and 112th Avenue was constructed 95 years ago,
“I am going to take your daddy away across the sea,” begins a letter from Lt. Col. William A. Griesbach to Edna Clarke, daughter of Capt. Edward Douglas Clarke.
With a rich connection to French culture and the Roman Catholic Church, the story of Morinville could be as much a part of Quebec than north central Alberta.
When the Calgary and Edmonton Railway Company completed its line from Calgary to a terminus south of the banks of the North Saskatchewan River in August 1891,
Situated along Westmount’s magnificent tree-lined 125th Street, the Charles Barker Residence was built during the height of Edmonton’s greatest boom of the early 20th century.
Condensing the long and rich history of the first 100 years of public transit in Edmonton into a single volume is no easy undertaking, but Ken Tingley has the job just about complete.
Edmonton historian Ken Tingley has spent the better part of 2008 researching and writing the history of the first 100 years of public transit in the city.
The William O’Leary Residence, on a rectangular lot at 10544 126th Street, has been designated a Municipal Historic Resource in recognition of its historical and architectural significance.
When it was officially opened on September 22, 1960, the Queen Elizabeth Planetarium was Canada’s first. It remained the only municipal facility of its type in the country until 1966
There are thousands of them around the city, but we don’t think of them as historic or particularly remarkable. Yet, the buildings that were constructed during Edmonton’s largest boom of the 20th century,
Under Jubilee Park in the heart of the Beacon Heights community resides the last vestiges of coal mining in Beverly and one of its most colourful stories.
More than 100 years have passed since Edmonton's first library was informally established and, during the passage of the last century, houses of books have come and gone.
War loomed on the horizon and uncertain times lay ahead but when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Edmonton on June 2, 1939, they gave our city a reason for jubilation.
Edmonton is booming now, and a half century ago, it was in the midst of another period of rapid growth. Beginning with the 1947 discovery of vast oil reserves under Edmonton’s feet,
Growth propelled Edmonton eagerly into the 1960s and, like the city itself, the Edmonton Real Estate Board was in need of more space for its roster of services
It’s not there anymore, but for a group of young men in 1934, the Beverly Skating Rink at the northwest corner of 118th Avenue and 40th Street was truly a rink of dreams.
Between Edmonton’s incorporation as a city in 1904 and 1912, the population catapulted from 8,350 to more than 50,000, as newcomers poured into the region.
When the Hudson’s Bay Company put its considerable Edmonton land holdings on the market May 13th, 1912, it gave another shot of adrenalin to a real estate market that was already in hyper-drive.
In these days of drive through fast food, it’s perhaps a little difficult to imagine driving up to a restaurant, being served right in your car and dining off the dashboard.
First by horses, then by “horseless carriage,” and later by truck, the halcyon days of door-to-door delivery lasted nearly the first 70 years of the 20th century in Edmonton.
The Edmonton Real Estate Weekly® is published every Thursday by the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton. It contains feature articles of general interest as well as real estate advertisements and listings for Edmonton and North-central Alberta. Cover to cover, each new issue is full of information for home buyers including open houses and the most recent new MLS property listings.
