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The Story
In a quest
to unify a vast nation, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) arrived in the small
settlement of Fort
Calgary in 1883. With
the arrival of the tracks came the beginnings of a city.
The biggest influence to
the development of Calgary, the location of the
new railway and station were essentially what shaped today's downtown Calgary and its
surrounding areas by influencing the location of the city's streets. It
was the CPR that laid out the city's oldest neighbourhoods including Inglewood, Victoria Park
and Mount Royal. All of Calgary's first roadways were even named
after CPR officials and personnel.
To give you an idea of the scope of Calgary's first boom, in 1904 there were about 4,000 people here. By 1914 there were over 44,000. A housing shortage caused many people to live in tents or pile into suited houses while building their homes. As early as the summer of 1906, the Herald complained that "prices in the centre
of the city are almost prohibitionary to the working man who contemplates
building a home."
Victoria Park was one of the first areas to benefit
from this initial wave of investment. In 1902, the CPR built a station and loading docks between 9 and 10 Avenues SE (today's Warehouse District). This enticed people to this area and the CPR began to take an interest in finding their employees places to live. The CPR purchased plots of land from the Mounties - land that was being used as a grazing ground for their horses - in an area then known as the East Ward. They began to sell 25 x 100-foot properties in lottery type sales. Many of these land parcels were quickly snatched up and the East Ward began to boom overnight.
The strongest period of development in the community of Victoria
Park was from 1902 to 1913. Merchants and labourers alike were attracted
to the availability of lots close to their place of work.
At one point, before elite subdivisions such as Mount Royal were
established, early Victoria Park was the preferred choice of residence
for the managerial class.
By the time World War I was declared, Calgary had grown from a collection of shacks in 1883 to a bustling modern city with a population of 90,000 in 1914. Victoria Park had contributed to this fantastic growth.
In contrast to
the explosive growth of the early 1900's, by the end of the WWII Victoria Park
was entering into a period of decline and began to experience many symptoms of
urban decay. With
transportation and warehousing no longer being centrally located in the area,
and a growing appetite for suburban living fueled by the automobile, Victoria
Park began a slow decline from grace.
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Behind the Name
In
1888, a permanent site for the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede was purchased along the Elbow River. After completing a few projects in 1889 that included a race track and an exhibition building, the grounds were named Victoria Park after Queen Victoria.
Though the area surrounding the Stampede grounds was originally
called the East Ward, Victoria Park became a casual term for the neighbouring community and the name was soon adopted by the people in the area.
After abolishing the ward system in 1905, the community officially became known as Victoria Park.
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Did You Know?
Officially opened on January 2, 1912, Memorial Park Library was the first public library in all of Alberta.
The park on which the library is located is the oldest surviving park in Calgary. It was created around 1885.
- Calgary's first streetlights were located at 2nd Street SE (today's northbound Macleod Trail).
- Calgary's first streetcar travelled down 2nd Street SE from 8 Avenue in downtown to the Victoria Park fairgrounds (now Stampede Park).
- Calgary's Warehouse District is located in Victoria Park because of its proximity to the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks. Most of the warehouses that remain still have loading docks that open up facing the rail tracks.
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