Timeline of Edmonton history

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The timeline of Edmonton history is a chronology of significant events in the history of Edmonton, Alberta.

  • Indigenous peoples roamed Alberta for thousands of years, or even tens of thousands of years. The rim of the river valley and its ravines and hilltops in Edmonton are known to have been well-used as campgrounds and look-out points during this time. Rabbit Hill, today's Mary Lobay Park, Mount Pleasant Cemetery and Huntington Heights (near Whitemud Drive west of Calgary Trail) are known to be sites of human activity for millennia.[citation needed] As well, the "Old North Trail" of the Blackfoot goes through present-day Edmonton, as it goes from Mexico to the Barren Lands up north. (Part of it survives is preserved as the Great Western Trail through the U.S.) At about Edmonton the Trail branched, with one branch going through present-day site of Ft. Assiniboine and toward western Arctic lands; the other branch going NE then breaking north to descend the Athabasca River. Some conjecture that the Trail's crossing of the North Saskatchewan River at the site is the reason for the siting of fur-trade posts in Rossdale.[1][2][3]

18th century

19th century

  • 1802 - Fort Edmonton (Hudson's Bay Company) moves to Rossdale.
  • 1810 - Fort Edmonton (Hudson's Bay Company) moves to a location near Smoky Lake.
  • 1812 – Fort Edmonton (Hudson's Bay Company) moves to Rossdale, never again to move out of today's Edmonton. This is start of Edmonton's recorded permanent occupancy.[6]
  • 1821 the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company merge, and fur-trade activities at Edmonton are concentrated in Fort Edmonton.
  • 1824 - Horse packtrail established to connect Fort Edmonton to HBC's Fort Assiniboine, which serves as trans-shipment point on the Athabasca River, part of the Mackenzie River watershed flowing to the Arctic.[7]
  • 1830 – Fort Edmonton moves up the hill, to near today's legislative building. From 1830 to 1860, the fur trade in western Canada uses Edmonton as a prominent transshipment point connecting the prairies with New Caledonia (interior BC) and with the fur trading posts up north. By 1860s ships are sailing from the Atlantic Ocean "around the Horn" to the west coast, and that more and more causes a decline in the importance of Edmonton as a transportation link.[8]
  • 1859-1860 - Gold rush in the Cariboo region of BC leads to gold-panners coming to Edmonton. Among them Thomas Clover, who founds settlement at Clover Bar. (Later dredges are used to mine gold from river bed.)[9][10]
  • 1870 – Fort Edmonton and the rest of the North-West Territories becomes part of Canada when the Dominion of Canada expands to take in the Hudson's Bay Company's Rupert's Land.
  • 1871 – The first prominent buildings outside the walls of Fort Edmonton, a Methodist church mission building and manse, built by George McDougall and his family, formerly of Victoria Settlement. They add mix to the existing campsites and log cabins of gold prospectors, frontier farmers and hunters, Indigenous, European and Métis, who live in the bush where City of Edmonton sits today.
  • 1874 - North-West Mounted Police makes Great March to western prairies. Second Patrol, a spin-off of the main March West, arrives in Edmonton in exhausted dribs and drabs Oct. 29-Nov. 2
  • 1875 - Arrival of Edmonton's first sternwheeler/steamboat Northcote.
  • 1876
    • Donald Ross opens Edmonton's first hotel
    • Treaty 6 is signed by representatives of the Queen and local Native leaders. Title to the Edmonton region is ceded to the Crown, excepting promised Indian reserves of Enoch and Papaschase, in return for treaty obligations on the part of the Crown (and the Canadian government). (The Papaschase reserve, on the site of Mill Woods and Southgate mall, was never established.)[11]
    • Athabasca Landing Trail opened up, replacing the road to Fort Assiniboine as the main route to the north country.
  • 1878 - first post office opens
  • 1879
  • 1880 – Edmonton Bulletin begins publication. Frank Oliver, publisher
  • 1881
    • First school built in Edmonton at a site near the current McKay Avenue School at 10425 – 99 Avenue.
  • 1882
    • As new arrivals try to take up residence in Edmonton area where people are already living, a violent struggle arises between "old timers" and the new "squatters". Matthew McCauley is named to head a settlers rights protective association (in local parlance "a vigilance committee"). He and others throw a squatter's shack over the edge of the river valley.[12]
    • Dominion Land Survey is conducted in Edmonton area. Fixes in place a mixture of riverlots along river and square sections elsewhere. It helps firm up local land ownership.
  • 1883 - Edmonton, at the time an unincorporated hamlet, elects Frank Oliver as its first representative to the NWT Territorial Council.
  • 1885 - Telephone service begins with just two telephones
  • 1885 - North-West Rebellion and the simultaneous First Nations uprising, both centred in Saskatchewan, strikes fear in many in Edmonton. Alberta Field Force comes from Calgary and ensures local security.
  • 1886 – Edmonton's coldest temperature is recorded, as −49.4 °C (−56.9 °F) January 19.[13]
  • 1891
  • 1892
    • Edmonton incorporated as a town with a population of 700. Covered what is now downtown, north of the river.[15][16]
    • Edmonton's first town election. Matt McCauley elected mayor. City-wide district used; all city councillors elected in one contest.
    • Rat Creek Rebellion - Mayor McCauley and an armed mob prevent transfer of Dominion land office to "South Edmonton" (Strathcona). The mob stands off a NWMP force that arrives to establish law and order. When tempers cool, a separate land office is established in South Edmonton. Edmonton hires its first constable.[17]
    • Second McDougall Church is built at site of first church. (Now at Fort Edmonton Park)
  • 1894 - Edmonton Police force founded.
  • 1895 - Herbert Charles Wilson becomes Mayor of Edmonton (until 1896)
  • 1896
  • 1897 – Edmonton is a starting point for people making the trek overland to the Klondike Gold Rush. Nearby South Edmonton (Strathcona) was the northernmost railway point on the western Prairies. (But Edmonton was still about 3000 kilometres from the goldfields.)
  • 1899

Early 20th century

Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) arrived in Edmonton in 1905.
  • 1900
    • Low Level Bridge is completed. At first carries road traffic and foot traffic only.
  • 1901
  • 1903
    • Edmonton Journal founded.
    • Methodist Church Board founds Alberta College
    • Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific Railway is built on the Low Level Bridge to connect Rossdale Station in Edmonton on the north side of the river by rail to Strathcona and thence to the outside world. In 1906 railway line is extended from Rossdale west to 124 Street and up out of the river valley, then back east along 104 Avenue to downtown Edmonton.
    • First car in Edmonton is unloaded off the train that brought it. Owner, Joe Morris.
  • 1904
    • Incorporated as a city with a population of 8,350.[15] First mayor, Kenneth MacKenzie.
    • Elected Liberal MP Frank Oliver in federal election. (Strathcona on the southside elected Liberal MP Peter Talbot.)
  • 1905
  • 1907-13 – Real estate and construction boom. With amalgamation of the cities of Strathcona and Edmonton, the population of Edmonton grew to 72,500.[15]
  • 1907
    • Six miners die in a fire at the Strathcona Coal Company, near south end of today's High Level Bridge, the deadliest industrial accident Edmonton has suffered
    • First paving blocks laid on McDougall Avenue, now 101 Street.
  • 1908
    • Edmonton Hockey Club makes the city's first appearance at the Stanley Cup finals.
    • Edmonton Street Railway (streetcars) begins operations, crosses Low Level Bridge.
    • Strathcona Canadian Pacific Railway Station completed, along the Calgary & Edmonton Railway line.
    • University of Alberta established in Strathcona and began instruction. First convocation
    • Edmonton Pressed Brick opens a plant on the slope of the river valley in east Cloverdale in 1908. Plant made as many as 30,000 bricks daily, upwards of 5 million bricks in a year, for next six years. Its excavations formed the "Camel Humps".[20]
  • 1909
  • 1910
  • 1911
  • 1912
  • 1913
    • Alberta Legislature Building completed.
    • Edmonton Public Library first opens with two branches.
    • High Level Bridge opened. It carried a CPR rail-line and streetcar lines as well as a two-lane road for private vehicles (both horse-drawn and gas-fuelled) and sidewalks for pedestrians.
    • Robertson-Wesley United Church completed.
    • Edmonton economy collapses. With completion of Legislative Building and High Level Bridge, unemployment became problem. Land in the Hudson's Bay Company reserve was put on the market and sold, with the money raised by the sales going to HBC headquarters out of the province. British investment dried up as Europe invested in military preparation for the coming war. This all caused real estate prices to drop. With the start of World War I, the city's population declined, going from 72,000 in 1914 to under 54,000 in only two years, people leaving to eke out existence on farms, or off to war, or to other centres.[15]
The Hotel Macdonald in downtown Edmonton
  • 1914 - Vote held on street naming system (following amalgamation of Strathcona and Edmonton, each with their own systems) Numerical numbering (centred on Jasper Avenue and 101 Street) got 2099 votes; "Edmonscona" scheme (a mixed number-name system) got 1471 votes.[27]
  • 1914-1915 - Prince of Wales Armouries built.[28]
  • 1915
  • 1916
    • Rotary Club of Edmonton founded.[29]
    • Emily F. Murphy appointed first female police magistrate magistrate (equivalent of a provincial court judge today), making her the first female judge in the Commonwealth.
  • 1917
  • 1918
    • Joseph Clarke Mayor of Edmonton January 1919 - December 1920 (Labour-orientation)
  • 1918–1919 – Spanish Flu pandemic. Thousands are sick, unable to work. Kills 614 Edmontonians.
  • 1919
    • General strike in support of Winnipeg General Strike and simultaneous coal miners' strike were part of Edmontonians' involvement in the post-WWI Canadian labour revolt. Municipal-level Labour Party competed in 1919 election and achieved a majority on city council.[30]
  • 1920
  • 1921
  • 1922
    • CJCA begins broadcasting as city's first radio station.
    • Edmonton Grads win the Canadian Basketball Championship. The team wins this competition each year from 1922 to 1940.
    • Edmonton Eskimos football team, sponsored by local Elks society, took the name Edmonton Elks in October 1922. At first known as the Edmonton Rugby Foot-ball Club, the team had taken the name Eskimos. By 1922 that name was thought to be inappropriate to the team as it "did not connote any qualities desired in football players" and "it begot a false notion of the geographical position of Edmonton." The team disbanded during WWII. (see 1954) (Today's Edmonton Elks have taken the team's old name).[31][32][33]
    • Royal Mayfair Golf Club opens[34]
  • 1923
  • 1924
  • 1926
  • 1927
    • CKUA, the University of Alberta's radio station, and the first educational radio station in Canada comes on the air.[36]
  • 1929
  • 1930
    • Canadian Derby established.
    • The Great Depression hit Edmonton hard. Unemployment soared.
    • The Ku Klux Klan operated in Edmonton in the early 1930s, burning crosses when politicians that were thought to be sympathetic to its cause were elected.
  • 1931
    • Dan Knott Mayor of Edmonton November 1931 - November 1934 (of the Labour Party)
  • 1932
    • Edmonton Hunger March in December. A demonstration by struggling workers and farmers is repressed by billyclub-wielding police, some on horseback. Subsequently, police raid the Hunger March headquarters. 27 arrested.[39][40]
  • 1933
    • First traffic light begins flashing, at the 101st Street and Jasper Avenue intersection.[41]
  • 1934
    • Joseph Clarke Mayor of Edmonton November 1934 - November 1937 (he held pro-labour sentiments)
  • 1935
    • Edmonton elected its first Social Credit MLAs in 1935 Alberta General Election.
    • Margaret Crang, the youngest person ever to serve on city council when she was elected in 1933, is re-elected. She was the first woman to be re-elected to the city council.
  • 1937
    • Edmonton's hottest temperature (until 1998) is recorded as 37.2 °C on June 29.
    • John Wesley Fry Mayor of Edmonton November 1937 - November 1945
  • 1938
  • 1939
  • 1941
  • 1942
    • A record-breaking snowfall of 39.9 centimetres hits Edmonton on November 15.
  • 1943
  • 1944
  • 1945
    • Harry Ainlay Mayor of Edmonton November 1945 - November 1949 (member of the Labour party, then the CCF)
  • 1946

Later 20th century, after discovery of oil at Leduc

The path taken by the F4 Edmonton tornado in 1987. The F numbers are for the Fujita values, the O is for Imperial Oil Strathcona and Petro-Canada refineries, P is the Edmonton Power Clover power station and C is for the Celanese Canada chemical plant.

21st century

See also

References

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