Not to want to look picky but what Strathcona Community League website says of the area's railway history is off the mark. Here it is with corrections following, with sympathy for the writer.
First what is written:
The Train Preceded the Mill Creek Path
Prairie Trails by J.Olson
This is a story of how the dream of a rail line that could connect South Edmonton to Edmonton, to the rest of Canada, and to the world became a reality. This “dream” went right through the district of Hazeldean and then through the Mill Creek Ravine to the Low Level Bridge.
In the prairies of the 1890s, there were no cars, or buses, highways or even roads; just lengthy prairie trails formed by wagon tracks, horses and feet. Soon a new form of regular transportation, the stagecoach, would run between Fort Edmonton and Fort Calgary five days a week. Traveling from Winnipeg was a six-week journey by Red River cart. By 1875, stern-wheeled riverboats could be seen on the river, but service was both unpredictable and irregular.1
The “Great Trail”, across Canada, the Canadian Pacific Railway, was built by the federal government under Sir John A. MacDonald. In the 1860s, steam locomotives were moving through the United States, and Canada wanted a train system to get settlers to occupy its west.
📷
Map of C&E Railway
Eventually the federal government gave local government charters for railways to hand out to developers. Businessmen and homesteaders alike wanted to know where the rail line would go. The government had mapped out various routes, mostly with Edmonton as a stop on the best route. Yet, at the last minute, decisions changed the fate of Edmonton and the planned mainline went through Calgary. Epic battles were waged between communities and governments about where the railway would travel across the country. Finally, it was decided that a southern route across the Canadian prairies and the Rocky Mountains would be the best. This left Fort Edmonton and surrounding communities out of the rail loop.
In those days rail lines determined where communities would be built and which ones would grow into cities. In fact, in some communities people would lift their houses off of their foundations and move them closer to the railway line to establish more “connected” communities. It was that important!
But Edmonton wanted to ensure its connection to the north and so people and businesses remained in Fort Edmonton and Rossdale, waiting for a bridge to the south. Eventually the Dominion government agreed to have such a bridge built over the North Saskatchewan. The possibility of a bridge across the river made it more likely that a railway would reach Edmonton. In 1895, the government sold a charter to J. McAvity and Associates of New Brunswick. The charter owners were “gold struck” with the prospects of the yellow metal and amended the charter to extend to the Yukon Territory. During the Klondike gold rush many prospectors tried to reach the Yukon by foot or on horse back, but few made it in time to profit from the soon to be picked over gold fields and returned poorer for the experience.
On August 11, 1899 the Edmonton District Railway was re-named the Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific Railway (EY&PR). Its new charter allowed the company to build a line from Edmonton to the Pacific Coast as well as a line from Edmonton to the Yukon.2
In 1899, a consortium of businessmen led by William Mackenzie (as president) and Donald Mann (as vice-president) created the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) and purchased the EY&P from McAvity. Their idea was to connect the EY&P with their rail line to the east through Winnipeg and Ontario, and to push the EY&P west to the Pacific coast. At the same time, they also announced that they would build a route from Calgary to Edmonton naming it the Calgary & Edmonton Railway (C&E).......
BUT
The Calgary & Edmonton Railway had been built in 1891. it ended at Saskatchewan Drive and did not cross the river to Edmonton on the north side of the river. Strathcona developed on the southside of the river. Edmonton did not move. it wanted to maintain its connection to the north, so it did not move from the northside of the river to the southside of the river. Moving to Calgary was never in the picture.
And then when the low-level bridge was built and the Edmonton Yukon &Pacific was built from Strathcona to Edmonton it connected Edmonton to the wider world, Strathcona on the southside had already been connected for more than a decade.
The reversal of connected-ness described in the SCL piece is also shown in one of the self-standing Old Strathcona historical markers. It has it that Edmonton fought to prevent the completion of EY&P because it did not want Strathcona connected to the wider world. While it was actually Edmonton that fought for the line's completion and Strathcona that fought against its completion, in order to preserve its monopoly on connected-ness.
Comments