a work in progress
The first railway line to arrive in the Edmonton area came in 1891. That was the Calgary & Edmonton Railway.
Even before that , something of the structure of modern-day Edmonton and Alberta was already in place.
The Garneau family, the McKernan brothers, Lendrum's, William Connor (of Connor's Road) had appeared on the scene on the southside.
McDougall (father George and son John), Frank Oliver, Matt McCauley and John McDougall (the "Edmonton trader") were on the northside.
Farmers, gold prospectors, shop-keepers, freighters, brick-makers, seamstresses, and more made up the small community.
Almost all came from away - the Papaschase band has certain prior rights, but the Pruden and Bird family were here even before their arrival in the 1850s.
Many of the pioneers had had colourful lives and far-flung travels before settling in Edmonton.
John Lee, former U.S. Civil War soldier, was one of the first to come north to the Caribou gold fields. He then prospected through BC before settling in the Macleod area around 1870. Later he was employed as a fish and game warden at Pigeon Lake. Died around 1922, at approx. age of 80. (Blairmore Enterprise, March 23, 1922, p. 6)
And not all stayed - one of the most colourful early characters - Jeremiah Johnston - was here only a short time. The whiskey-peddlar and sort of frontier delinquent pulled up stakes before the Mounties arrived in 1874 - and some of his later adventures were portrayed by Robert Redford in the film Jeremiah Johnson.
Among the Mounties who came to Edmonton in 1874 was Arthur Greisbach, father of William Griesbach, one of Edmonton's leading military men of the First World War.
Among the early Mounties stationed at Edmonton (or at the nearest post, at Fort Saskatchewan) were members of the Belcher family.
With the survey of 1882 and alreay-decades-long of human settlement at Edmonton, Jasper Avenue, University Avenue, 88th Avenue (in Bonnie Doon and east of that
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