Today we’re armed with an old photo showing a scene in Calgary Bankview and it’s from long ago. We’re going walk about the community and search out a couple things and places in that photo. The University of Calgary, who supplied the image, says it dates roughly from 1920, but later research tells us it’s from a bit later. We’ll get to that shortly.
In the Then photo we’re witness to a house being moved and another (stationary) dwelling is fairly prominent right behind it. Those two are today’s targets. We know the avenue where it’s taking place – that’s in the photo description – but not the exact address. Still, it should be easy enough to find the first one, if it still exists and it does.
Bankview Calgary: They Moved a House. Wandering the streets with Chris Doering & Connie Biggart (BIGDoer/Synd)
Thanks to “Cindy Miller Reade” for helping out and sponsoring this post. Be like Cindy…
We only had to travel a block or two to find it. It’s still standing strong and looks pretty much the same as it did. What a nice, well kept home. Both the city and private Henderson directories say it’s from 1935. Henderson’s is the defacto-guide to residential and business addresses back then and this data combined must date the old image from that year, or sometime close.
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We don’t know where the house is going, but something that large probably wouldn’t travel too far. Especially so given horses are doing the work. Bankview is a bit hilly and that likely further limited the distance it could go. That said, it’s probably nearby, assuming it too still exists. It turns out it does.
However, it’s aligned completely different from the view in the old photo and is a bit altered appearance, so initially we missed it. Walked right on past, oblivious to it all. At the end of the day, we covered some eight or ten square blocks in the neighbourhood. We suspect this is far beyond where it could have travelled, but who knows, so we did it to make sure.
We knew it had to be within that area and either we missed it or it was gone. After some online help and a second more thorough walkabout, we confirmed the location. Thanks to Jay who did some of the detective work for us.
This house is approximately one block south of the location seen in the old photo. It’s off beyond the left side of the frame and a bit more uphill.
Seeing it in motion must have been amazing to watch. They’ll have to make the corner shortly, and somehow duck under those power lines, but surely they carefully planned out the trip beforehand.
The city says this house is from 1910 and it must represent the date when originally built. Where ever that was. There’s no information on where it came from and why they moved it, but it’s must be an interesting story.
This probably made the local newspapers, but in any copies available to us from the target era, we found nothing. However, the archives are incomplete. We’d sure like to know and it’s a good bet all you do too. It appears there was a house on this same lot as early as the 1910s (again Henderson’s), but it must have been gone by this point. Burned down or removed?
The moved house today differs some and has lost that overhang on the right side (facing side in the old photo). Windows on that wall differ today too. The side seen in the old photo is actually a reverse angle compared to the present day street view. They spun it around, if you will. It would appear in its earlier incarnation, the right wall was the street side.
The alley view shows the upper dormer is still there and that window placement is the same as in the old photo.
And to think we walked right past it.
Back to the old photo. On closer examination, it appears the team of horses comprises six or eight animals. That doesn’t seem like much given the sloped terrain, but in searching out similar photos of houses moved by horse, it doesn’t look out of the ordinary. That animal power was still used at this late date, and not some kind of heavy machinery, does seem a bit odd. It was the depression, however, and economy was the order of the day.
This might explain why the UofC applied the ca1920 date to the photo.
We note one fellow leading the horses and various others around the house presumably keeping an eye on things as it moves. Several sets of wheels are visible under the building.
There’s a horse on the left side of the frame and presumably someone is watching the action from this mount. There are no other arm-chair foremen about, which seems kind of odd. This was a free show and these always seems to attract curious locals.
Many of the other houses seen in back still exist and any we found data for date from the 1920s period. Bankview is one of Calgary’s mature neighbourhoods, but even so there were empty lots here into the 1940s. The land where the photographer stood back when shooting the original photo has houses on it now.
In the 1930s this wasn’t far from the western edge of town, but now it’s now inner-city and the edge is some 9km on that same direction. To say Calgary has grown is an understatement.
We found the Then image by accident while researching another subject at the archives. There it was and we just had to do something with it. The search would be fun.
We also accept Then & Now fodder from readers and if you have a old family photo showing some kind of street scene like this, send it our way. We’ll shoot something similar and post it on our various sites. Select ones appear with write-ups on BIGDoer.com…we do love to babble on.
Thanks for stopping by and watch for more content like this coming soon.
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Date of adventure: ca1935 and March 2025. Location: Bankview, Calgary. Article references and thanks: UofC Photo Archives, old Henderson Directories, the City of Calgary and help from Facebook friends (Jay Red Sky in particular).
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