Main Street in Trochu Alberta

Welcome to Main Street in Trochu Alberta and today we’re presenting two photos captured from the same location, but separated by a hundred plus years. As the saying goes, some things change and some stay the same, but here it’s more of one than the other. Much of what’s seen in the old photo is long gone and only the former bank building remains to help connect the two eras.

You’ve joined with us in travelling across time and get to see the community both long ago and present day. Back then, Trochu was new on the scene and the future bright. Today, the exuberance has died down, and the view changed, but still the vibe is not all that different. Funny how that works.

The old image comes from our friends at Prairie-Towns.com and appears to be an old promotional photo or maybe postcard. Both were produced by the gazillions during the old days and widely distributed. Given its age we suspect it’s in the public domain. Interestingly, it also appears in Trochu’s local history book and we’ve also seen hard-copy versions for sale online.

We generally don’t alter an original image in any way, but here and in a rare case, it’s been cropped. There’s one building just off scene to the right that was just too-close to line up properly, so it couldn’t be included. No matter our approach it just looked wrong and ruined the scene.

When we’re dealing with tight-in subjects, and especially those with straight architectural lines, it’s near impossible to make things work. Just being off by a hair will have the comparison shot looking all wonky and the effect spoiled. It took us a while to learn this and just browse some of our earlier T&N works to see what we mean. Some of them are high on the suckage scale and others even worse!

Most of the then photos, in recent times anyway, have been sourced by us and that’s the case here. However, we encourage anyone with old family photos (so your copyright) that might show a scene like this that you think can be duplicated, to contact us. Maybe we can put it to use and make you famous (haha). Certain images work better than others and we can fill you in when we chat. We love doing these, and while there’s quite a backlog, we always want more.

Then: The old image is not dated but by looking at the general newness of everything and that overall frontier feel, it must be early in the town’s history. Trochu came to be at the beginning of the 1910s, thanks to the arrival of the railway, and we’re certain it’s from around that time.

The bank building, which ties the photos together, appears to have scaffolding out front, and this might suggest it’s under construction at the time. Originally the Merchant’s Bank and later the Bank of Montreal, it’s from sometime around 1912 to 1913.

The old image isn’t that big but if blown up as best as can be done, we can see signs for a doctor’s office (first building on the right), a drug store (tallest building) and right before of the bank, a hardware store. Buildings the next block down are too distant to identify and the angle’s wrong anyway.

A law office and tailor shop can been seen on the opposite side of the street. The large building further on, same side, housed a general store and upstairs, a dance hall. It all burned to the ground in the early-’20s and never rebuilt.

People can been seen milling about in the distance in the old photo, and a couple horse drawn wagons are parked in front of the bank. There’s not a car to be seen. The Grand Trunk Pacific train station is prominent at the end of Main Street and a couple rail cars can be spotted on the tracks behind.

Note the dirt streets and wood boardwalks, both of which were generally indicative of a community recently established.

Adding it all up, Trochu looked like a pretty typical frontier town of the era.

The shadow of the photographer(?) can be seen in the photo and its position tells us the image capture must be from later in the afternoon. Main Street runs on an almost on an east-west alignment and at that time the sun would be to their back.

Now: Well, almost now and our shot is actually from a year ago. We’re know we’re slow to post these and apologize. The bank is the same, except it’s no longer a financial institution and instead almost appears to be someone’s home. The Bank of Montreal moved out later in the 1970s but they still have a presence elsewhere in town.

This NeoClassical style of bank building was common to small prairie towns and the design adopted by many competing financial firms back in the day. By appearance alone you knew exactly what you were looking at. Many of these buildings still exist and while a few are still banks, many it seems have been repurposed. Turning them into a home seems to be popular.

You can see another Then & Now where a similar bank building plays a big part in connecting everything: Downtown Bawlf Alberta. It’s similarly also a home today.

There doesn’t seem to be any other structures on the first block that appear in both photos. These early shops or stores were often of wood and hastily built so they didn’t always last long. Some buildings further away might show in both images, however, but we can’t say for certain. We think the present day hotel is the long structure seen on the right, far in the distance in the old photo. It and the building in the then pic seem to match up in height and position.

The train station is gone, but the railway is still there and has been a Canadian National property since the early 1920s.

The unpaved street of the early years is almost mimicked by the dirty snow seen on out visit, but there is asphalt underneath.

It seems there’s nothing else to connect the two scenes otherwise, in view, but interestingly it doesn’t really feel all that different. It’s just a small community with small businesses and a downtown where they roll up the streets at night.

The Peking Cafe has an interesting sign and it’s very retro in appearance. The design suggests it’s quite old, but oddly the eatery doesn’t show up in any records until the 1970s. Neon wasn’t a thing by that date but had been the preceding decades.

Trochu is home to about a thousand people now, but when they captured the old photo (depending on the exact year) it would have been less than half that. Farming and ranching is where it’s at here and that been the case right from the start. The Canadian Prairies are the world’s bread basket and things here grow well.

So ends another across time adventure, but there’s more coming down the pipe and we mean lots more. Hope you had fun and we sure did, even if the frigid conditions the day of our visit made it more difficult than usual.

Know more about the community (new window): Trochu Alberta.

They’re saying…

“Thank you so much for your fantastic articles and photos….I could spend 24/7 here with you! I especially love the before and after articles…Keep up the great work guys!!” Joanne Winchester Honer.

Also shot in town…
Two Churches Trochu Alberta.

More small towns…
Downtown Trout Lake British Columbia.
Downtown Bawlf Alberta.
Loverna SK Then & Now (x2).

If you wish more information on what’s seen here, don’t hesitate to: contact us!

Date of Adventure: 1910s and February 2022.
Location(s): Trochu, Alberta.
Article references and thanks: Remember When – The History of Trochu and District, the Town of Trochu, Medicine and District Genealogical Society, plus Prairie-Towns.com.

Main Street in Trochu Alberta over a century apart.

Old and new signs.

The former bank building is seen in both images.