Capitol Hill Cottage School
Today we’ll be looking at an old building in the Calgary Neighbourhood of Capitol Hill. It appears to be a house and is in a residential area, and there was a reason behind that, but actually it was a school. Dating back to 1912, it’s what’s known as a Cottage School. There were many of them and all were to be temporary while a more permanent, larger structure was built nearby, then when vacated, they could be resold as a residence. That was the plan, but it never happened in this case.
After being used as a school for much longer than intended, so into the early 1960s (they usually expected a few years use out of them), it was acquired by a Scouts Group, St. Cyprian’s 31st, who continue to use it. It’s actually owned by the city, however, and recently they announced they wished to dispose of it. Uncertain future alert!
There were at one time some seventeen of these Cottage Schools in the city (some were larger Bungalow Schools), of which three remain. One is in the community of Hillhurst not terribly far away (I suspect we’ll pay it a visit some time), is also owned by the city and it too may get sold off. The third, also facing the same fate as the other two, is in West Hillhurst/Grand Trunk. It’s of course on our radar too. There’s said to be a forth, in the community of Cliff-Bungalow, but it appears different in design, bigger, and does not seem to show up in the old Cottage School list we used.
Cottage Schools were not unique to Calgary. Other Alberta cities had some and they all followed a similar plan as this one.
Taking you to school…
Sunalta.
sKooL dAyz.
Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found. Or sometimes we just ramble on about Lord knows what.
If you need any more information on what we talked about here, by all means contact us!
Date of adventure: July, 2018.
Location: Calgary, AB.
Formerly the Capitol Hill Cottage School.
For the last fifty plus years, it’s been a Scout’s Hall.
Remember when the boys were in the scouts?
Oh yeah, long ago!
Looks similar to my Eaton’s Catalogue house built in 1917.
Cool, would love to see a photo! Go to the contact page.
Went to a cottage school on 4th St. N. E. Before Stanley Jones had grade one. It’s gone long ago for apartments.
I knew there were others!
(There’s the) Grand Trunk Cottage School, 2422 5th Avenue N.W.
Yes, and a couple others I understand which we’ll probably explore at some point. As we tend to do.
Just last weekend I spotted this building for the first time, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on that street and never noticed it! I wonder if there were more trees before where that sidewalk is now, and more than one person I talked said much the same thing…
Saw a photo of it in the 1970s and the trees then were people-tall and didn’t block the view as they do today.
Grew up in Capital Hill. Went to the Cottage School in the early 50s. Drove by there the other day with my grandson and was sad to see it in such bad repair.
That it’s still here is good, but it could use some attention for sure. Still, it looks in reasonable shape overall.