Edmonton has had documented permanent human occupancy since 1812.
Here is actual start of Edmonton.
An entry in the Edmonton House Journal written at the Edmonton House III, located near Smoky Lake, dated Oct. 1812,
"Sent off two men to begin felling Wood for a new Factory in the Neighbourhood of old Edmonton House."
That is how Edmonton started as permanent encampment. From that point on, for sure, people have lived in Edmonton. Before that, human occupancy was off and on, as far as we know. So by this reckoning Edmonton as a settlement is 209 years old.
For many of those years Edmonton was little more than a fort with Native tipis outside its gates. And probably the odd hunter/frontier entrepreneur log cabin scattered in the bush. (Settlement outside the fort did not begin in big way until 1870s.)
Fort Edmonton V. sited on high terrace near today's Legislative Building, was built in 1831 after flood showed residence in river flats where Edmonton House IV was located was unsafe. (It could also have been that 20 years living in the same site was unsanitary and too smelly even for the people of that time. Or that the wooden structures were decayed, rotten and it was just as easy to build again as to try to fix up what was left.)
Fort Edmonton Park has a recreation of the old Edmonton HBC fort.
The Fort Edmonton there, with its tall palisades, log cabin living quarters and Rowand's Folly (the three-story head office/grand residence) was built in the 1970s.
Rowand's Folly was originally built in or around 1843. Named after the man behind the project Chief Factor (Fort Boss) John Rowand (1787-1854). Yes, people from the 1700s lived in Edmonton, making it one of the earliest settlers' places in the northern Prairies.
Fort Edmonton Park, built around the tourist mecca that is the recreated Fort Edmonton, is a collection of some of the oldest buildings in north-central Alberta.
The Peter Erasmus House, originally of the Victoria Settlement 100 kms downstream, is located in the Park. It was built in the 1860s.
It is found on the Park's 1885 Street.
(While the Erasmus House was moved to Edmonton, the oldest building on its original site in Alberta - the Clerk's Quarters - still sits on the site of the old fort at Victoria Settlement.)
Other buildings of the 1870 era are also found on the 1885 Street in the Park, but like the Erasmus House, none of them are on their original locations.
Edmonton's oldest buildings still on their original sites include:
1800s
- John Walter’s first house, built in 1875, the oldest surviving residence on the south side of the North Saskatchewan River. The river flat district where it sits was later named Walterdale. Once a thriving residential neighbourhood and manufacturing complex, the site of Walterdale is now a park, recreation centre and road approach to the Walterdale Bridge.
- Walter’s second home, built in 1884, next to his 1875 house. It was constructed much the same way as Walter's first house (horizontal log with dovetail corners, A-frame roof).
These buildings survived the 1899 and 1915 floods.
(By last report, Walter's old ferry, once the only or best way to cross the river during the summer, is mouldering away in the bushes near these houses.)
- Public Schoolhouse (on grounds of McKay Avenue School) 10425 99 Avenue 1881
This old one-room schoolhouse on the brow of the river valley once was probably the first "government" building in Edmonton. Before Edmonton was even a town, before Alberta was a province, when Edmonton was little more than the fort, a public school district was formed (after a positive vote by local residents). And this public school was the first government building of any sort in Edmonton, as far as I can tell anyway. (The Hudson's Bay fort was a private corporate structure.)
Known during its usage as "the public school," being the only school in the place at the time.
- Hub Hotel (Jasper House Hotel) 9692 Jasper Avenue 1882
when built, it was only brick building between Winnipeg and Vancouver.
only brick building in Edmonton until 1891
second hotel ever in Edmonton, and (after the demolition of the Donald Ross's Edmonton Hotel) is the oldest surviving one
probably oldest commercial building in Edmonton still standing (although Walter's homes were often used or business purposes)
owned by James Goodridge after 1893
Little of the Jasper House remains but its facade retains the configuration of earlier days.
A replica of its Jasper House Hotel incarnation can be seen at Fort Edmonton Park.
- the Strathcona Hotel 10302 Whyte Avenue 1891.
This building and the now-demolished railway station were the first buildings in the railway townsite that would lead to the town and the city of Strathcona.
Still in the location where it was built and still, after 130 years, operating as a hotel and tavern (barring the short pause during Alberta's Prohibition 1917-1923 when it was used as a women's college).
Addition to the north built later.
Land Titles Office 10523 100 Avenue 1893
This building is product of an insurrection led by Edmonton mayor Matt McCauley. When he learned of a federal official beginning to move the local land tiles office to the southside to rival settlement South Edmonton (Old Strathcona), he mobilized the Edmonton Home Guard. Armed with rifles they stopped the official in his tracks and then faced off force of Mounties riding in from Fort Saskatchewan. The federal government then firmed up the office's location in Edmonton by building this building. In a slap at Edmonton, the government opened a second land titles office on the southside anyway.
- First Presbyterian Church of Strathcona building 1895 (now not in original location)
when used as a church it was located at 101 St and 81 Ave.
but now located at about 10449 86 Avenue
Currently used as residential duplex, in Hromada Housing Co-op.
- McLean House 10454 84 Avenue 1896.
Arthur McLean was hardware merchant on Whyte Avenue. Served on public school board and on town council 1901-2.
- The Ross Block 10309 Whyte Avenue built 1898 (despite date "1894" on building). Replaced older wooden building on site that was built in 1894. Additions at back were built later.
- St. Joachim's Roman Catholic Church 9920 110 Street Built in 1899
Gothic Revival style church was the heart of Edmonton's francophone community. Architect Francis X. Deggendorfer based this building on medieval ecclesiastical design. There are many Gothic details.
Building built in 1899. A steeple was added in 1901, and the vestry was completed in 1912. As one of the earliest and most impressive Roman Catholic churches in Alberta, St. Joachim's served as a model for other places of worship. Joachim's is the oldest Roman Catholic parish in Edmonton, dating back to 1854.
1900s:
- Gariepy Mansion/Rosary Hall, 9947 104th Street 1902.
Two-storey brick mansion. One of the few early grand mansions remaining in Edmonton.
Built for Joseph Hormidas Gariepy (whose unsavoury business and political schemes are discussed in another blog).
It was built in 1902 at the corner of what was then called Victoria Avenue and Fourth Street.
Built by the southside brick company P. Anderson and Co. (I talk of Peter Anderson and his ca. 1910 brickyard in Cloverdale in another blog.)
(1904 photo at PAA: B4543. Also PAA B1380)
- William Paskins Residence/The Works International Visual Arts Society. 1902 (Not on original site.)
When it was built around 1902, it was one of the more elaborate residences in the McCauley community. The house is built in Queen Anne style. One of the first occupants of the home was William Paskins, a carpenter who lived there for only two years. It was moved from its original location at 10613 95 Street to its current location at 10635 95 Street, and in 2004, it was designated as a Municipal Historic Resource. A rear addition was completed in 2009, and the building is now home to The Works International Visual Arts Society.
- McKay Avenue School 10425 99 Avenue 1904/1905
This brick building is located next to the old 1881 McKay Avenue School. Built just as Alberta became a province, large room in the building was used to house the first two legislative sessions of the Legislature in 1906. Named after HBC surgeon, Dr. William MacKay. (Name misspelled unfortunately)
- Alberta Legislative Building built 1907-1912
The end of its construction helped spark the 1912/13 economic recession.
- Queen Alexandra School (Duggan Street School) 7730 106 Street 1906
the first home of the University of Alberta, when construction of the Strathcona Collegiate (today's Old Scona High School) was behind schedule.
sits at prominent location at intersection of three of south Edmonton's earliest roads,
--- University Avenue (formerly known as South Road) as it was south end of the riverlots surveyed in 1882
-- 106th Street, the road running along boundary between the east half and the west half of Section 20-Township 52-Range 24-West of the Fourth Meridian, as per the Dominion Land Survey.
-- 76th Avenue the road running along the north boundary between the east half and the west half of Section 19 and Section 20-Township 52-Range 24-West of the Fourth Meridian, as per the Dominion Land Survey.
This was back when a single family owned a quarter section, which today in many cases covers a full neighbourhood, holding perhaps 3,000 people.
It, with Rutherford School and Old Scona, are the only Strathcona schools that carried over to serve under the Edmonton Public School board. (for more information see my books Old Strathcona Edmonton's Southside Roots and Memories of Bonnie Doon.)
They and the Strathcona firehall (Walterdale Theater) are the only Strathcona public buildings that survive to today. The old city hall (built on what is now Gazebo park) and the city's public hospital were demolished long ago.
Due to its history, this school is said to be the only, or among the few schools, that sits on land owned by the school board, not owned by the city's park department. (Don't let the word out or some developer will work a deal and build condos on the schoolyard!)
- Old Scona High School (Strathcona Collegiate)
- Margaret Martin Residence 8324 106th Street 1907.
Designed in the Foursquare style and features symmetry, generous proportions and simple detailing. Unusual for Edmonton Foursquares, the house has a red brick exterior and a wraparound open verandah on the east and north elevations. The roof is hipped with large overhanging eaves and palladium (arched) dormer windows.
In 1899, Margaret Martin, her husband David, and their eleven children came from North Dakota to settle in the Canadian Northwest. They bought 320 acres of farmland south of South Edmonton (as Strathcona was known then). Unfortunately David died a year later of pneumonia.
Margaret then moved into town and had this house built. The house was designed by the architectural firm of Magoon, Hopkins and James, later becoming Magoon and MacDonald Associates. Margaret resided in the house until 1939. She died in 1940.
Her old farm was later subdivided and became known as the Martin Estates but was not developed to any great extent before the crash of 1912. Finally filled with houses during the post-WWII boom. It is now the site of part of the neighbourhoods of Allendale and Pleasantview.
Some of Margaret and David's eleven children left their own mark on Edmonton’s history. Grace Martin became a teacher and married Donald C. McEachern. She lived to be 108 years old, during many of which she worked for the church and school in her community. In 1972, she was honoured by having a school named after her.
Helen Martin married Cecil Rutherford, a lawyer and only son of Alberta’s first premier A.C. Rutherford.
David Quincy Martin married Lova Shaw, daughter of H. V. Shaw, the proprietor of the Edmonton Cigar Factory.
- J.J. Duggan Residence 10515 Saskatchewan Drive Built in 1907
Lived in for 25 years by the politician and lumber merchant John Joseph Duggan and his family.
J.J. Duggan (1868-1952) owned and operated a lumberyard near the railway tracks south of Whyte Avenue. Served on the first council of the Town of Strathcona 1899-1900 and as mayor, both when Strathcona was a town (1899-1907) and when it was a city (1907-1912). Duggan Bridge, now being rebuilt, is named after him as is an elementary school.
- Holy Trinity Anglican Church 10037 84th Avenue built 1906-1913.
The congregation of Holy Trinity Anglican Church began in 1893 after many Anglicans arrived from Ontario and Britain. A frame building was moved to this site in 1900 but was soon too small for the growing congregation. The basement for the existing church was excavated in 1906 and the church officially opened in 1913 in a ceremony conducted by Bishop Pinkham of Calgary.
- J.J. McKenzie Residence 8620 104 Street 1907
(said to be haunted)
(see my Old Strathcona book for info on this man.)
- Kingston Powell Building 10277 97 Street 1907
built for Kingston Powell. Farmer upon arrival in area in 1880s. later construction entrepreneur and real estate developer.
two-storey wood frame commercial/residential building.
one of last examples of mixed-used utilitarian business blocks in city
(The Yianis building on Whyte is another example of this.)
- Maclean Block 10702 Jasper Avenue 1909
holds Audrey's, the last independent new book store in Edmonton
1910 Photo: PAA B4228
- G.W. Robertson Residence 8506 104 Street 1909
- Jasper Block 10514-10520 Jasper Avenue 1909
This three-storey Edwardian-era mixed-use brick building is situated on an urban lot on the north side of Jasper Avenue in central downtown Edmonton.
The Jasper Block is significant for its architecture, being one of the last remaining turn of the 20th Century buildings left on downtown Jasper Avenue. It is a visual link to the City's early and rapid development. The building's architectural form and traditional high glazed store frontages is typical of many early Edmonton Edwardian era combined commercial and residential developments. The Jasper Block is also significant for its association with John Kelly, one of Edmonton's early successful businessmen. He came from a mixed professional background and found success in real estate. A blacksmith in Edmonton in 1902, he moved into real estate. He developed and built commercial buildings, of which a few still remain as significant historic resources in the City. It is also significant for its association with the building's architect, Hopkins and Wright who were responsible for the design of other early commercial buildings.
- Hugh Duncan Residence 8520 104 Street 1909
- Union Bank 10053 Jasper Avenue 1910
- Canada Permanent Building 10126 100 Street 1910
designed by Edmonton architect Roland Lines. Lines a few years later died in WWI.
- Commercial Hotel brick addition 10315? Whyte Avenue 1911/1912
Brick addition built to south of 1895 woodframe hotel in 1911.
In 1912 four-storey brick building replaced old woodframe building.
Addition built to the west in 1914.
Addition built to east on the old parking lot in 1980s.
its parking lot possibly was site of fisticuffs during the 1935 Aberhart election campaign as fictionalized in Bruce Powe's book Aberhart Summer.
Photo of striking barmen in the 1950s as seen in Finkel's Working People in Alberta was taken in front of this hotel "beer parlour." Signage for the Barr hardware store and Scona Assembly Hall are clearly visible in the background on the side of the Ross Block.
- First Presbyterian Church 10025 105 Street 1911
A later shelter for a congregation first started with the arrival in Edmonton of Rev. D.G. McQueen in 1883.
McQueen is subject of Corbett's biography McQueen of Edmonton.
Mercer Warehouse 10363 104 Street 1911
Built for John B. Mercer who had the retail/wholesale business in Edmonton since the 1890s. He sold liquors, cigars and wines from a store on Jasper Avenue before building this building as a warehouse for his stock.
(His business, at least the sale of liquor and wine, took a hit during Alberta's Prohibition, 1916-1923. Even when Prohibition ended, his business in that line of product did not come back as Alberta adopted provincial government wholesale and retail sale of liquor.)
- Horne and Pitfield Building 10301 104 Street 1911
- Great West Saddlery Building 10137 104 Street 1911
- Armstrong building 10125 104 1912 (may have been torn down)
- McKenney Building 10187 104 Street 1912
built for Henry William McKenney, St. Albert pioneer and store keeper and MLA.
During Riel's Second Rebellion (1885), McKenney's store had on of two phones in Edmonton area. The other was in the old fur-trading fort at Edmonton. During the Scare, the phone told him that Fort Saskatchewan had been captured by Natives. When he learned the report to be utterly false, he took the phone down from the wall, saying he did not want it anymore.
1913 photo: PAA B4944
- Ernest Brown Block 9670 Jasper Avenue 1912-3
Built for Ernest Brown, one of Edmonton's first photographers. around 1910, he was a busy entrepreneur, hiring other photographers and buying up Edmonton photographers' collections. operated first x-ray machine in Edmonton.
Unfortunately the WWI recession found him over-extended and he lost the building.
Eked out a living in Wetaskiwin for a couple years.
sold his collection of photos to Alberta Government for a tidy - but not excessive - sum in 1940s, died in 1951.
His photos, business correspondence and political writings - he was a forthright muckraker on the rich and powerful, a monetary reformer and a socialist - reside in the Provincial Archives.
I have blogs on this man and his views.
- Pendennis Hotel 9660 Jasper Avenue 1912
- Goodridge Block 9696 Jasper Avenue 1912
I think this is the old W.W. Arcade building for those who remember things like that.
- Phillips Building 10169 104 Street 1912
old site of Western Cartage and Storage as shown by painted sign on south wall
Photo in book Edmonton Alberta's Capital City (1914)
- Bard Residence about 10540 84 Avenue 1912
- R.N.W.M.P. Headquarters 9530 101A Avenue 1912-13
- Revillon Building 10221 104 Street 1912-13
Revillon Freres of Paris, France were in fur buying and wholesale and general store/department store business.
- McLeod Block 10136 100 Street 1913-15
tallest building in Edmonton for a few decades.
Built for Kenneth McLeod. Old "Kenny McLeod was one of Edmonton's pioneers, coming at time of the first railway line, 1891.
best remaining example of a skyscraper of Edmonton's WWI era
- Gibson Block 9608 Jasper Avenue 1913
"flat-iron building"
- Canada Consolidated Rubber Building 10249 104 Street 1913
- Gerolamy Residence 9823 91 Avenue 1913
- Dr. George Durrand Residence 10417 Saskatchewan Drive 1913
- Metals Building 10190 104 Street 1914
- Hecla Block 10141 95 Street 1914
Built for John Johnson (1860-1949), an Icelandic-Canadian who named building after Mount Hecla, best known volcano in Iceland.
early apartment building in Edmonton built to house working class persons.
one of few purpose-built blue-collar apartment buildings still standing adjacent to the city core.
- Princess Theatre 10337 Whyte Avenue 1915
oldest surviving theatre in Edmonton.
Showed silent films at first. Switched to talkies in 1929.
Closed for short time during 1918 flu epidemic.
From 1940s to 1970s building used for other kind of business.
Apartment constructed on the balcony. Kitchen was on different level than the living room and so on.
Reopened as Klondike Theatre.
Reopened as Princess Theatre in 1970s as part of Old Strathcona revitalization.
Its stage was venue for some performances of early Fringe festivals in 1970s.
One of Whyte Avenue's landmarks from 1970s to 1990s, when it was a very special place, showing artsy films and documentaries not available elsewhere.
Where else could you have seen a five and a half hour documentary film of the German occupation of France? I arrived an hour late and the lady at the door still insisted I pay full price. I told her I missed an hour already. She said I still had four hours to watch. I paid up.
Or Abel Gance's 1905 film Napoleon with its amazing split screen filmography, a technique only now being used commonly in films.
However, the growth of home entertainment technology and video stores etc. lowered its profitability.
Closed for most of 2020/2021 due to Covid pandemic.
Used as movie set for Anne Wheeler film "Bye Bye Blues".
Some of this information is taken from "Historical Walking Tours of Downtown Edmonton. Explore Our Past..." (Alberta Historical Resources Foundation, 2015)
Thanks for reading.
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