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Title	Memorial Park and Calgary Public Library from north-west corner of park.
Identifier	aj_21-06
Subject	Calgary (Alta.) -- History
Location	Calgary, Alberta
Time Coverage	28-Aug-57
Photographer	Alison Jackson
Donor	Alison Jackson Estate
Type	Still Image
Repository	Calgary Public Library, Central Library, Local History Room
Collection	Alison Jackson Photograph Collection
Rights	Copyright Calgary Public Library. 616 Macleod Trail SE, Calgary AB, T2G 2M2, 1+(403)260-2785 hum1@calgarypubliclibrary.com
Date Photo	28-Aug-57
Format Photo	35mm colour slide. Taken with a Praktica camera using Kodachrome daylight film 135.
Width Digital	4121
Height Digital	2719
File Size	32849.984 KB
File type	TIF
Notes	“Cornerstones” were articles that appeared in the Sunday edition of the Calgary Herald between 1997 and 2000. The following article appeared August 3, 1997. Memorial Park Library • 1221-2nd Street S.W. • Built: 1910-1912 • Architect: McLean and Wright of Boston, Massachusetts • Contractor: Richard A. Brocklebank (multi-term Calgary alderman) • Craftsmen: George Christie (head stonemason) and locally hired Scottish stonecutters • Original cost: $100,000 ($80,000 grant from American industrialist Andrew Carnegie and $20,000 from the City of Calgary) • Construction materials: yellow Paskapoo sandstone quarried at Calgary's Oliver Quarry. Load bearing sandstone walls (smoothly finished) backed with brick. Copper roof. Douglas fir floors, mahogany and birch trim. • Architectural style: Classical with strong influence of Beaux-Arts tradition. Decorative shell motive on roof originally carved in sandstone. Classically inspired portico. Front entrance flanked by Ionic columns and topped by an elaborately carved pediment. Balconies with iron railings off the largest first storey windows. Latticing in the smaller second storey windows. • Original interior details: On both sides of the foyer marble staircases led to the second floor. Two main floor fireplaces trimmed with mahogany. Moulded plaster columns and ceilings. Exterior entrance - granite steps and mahogany doors. Back walls gracefully curved with an expanse of windows which allowed a view of the park. Basement; walk-in vault, newspaper room. Main floor; reading room, children's room, reference room, stacks and cataloguing room. Second floor; lecture hall with stage, technical reading room and women's reading room. Historical highlights: • built on 4.78 acres owned by the city since 1889. The library site was chosen by plebiscite on August 12, 1908. • Chief Librarian, Alexander Calhoun described the park as " an unsightly wilderness of sand and scrub." Still to be landscaped when the library opened in 1912, it was gradually transformed by city Parks Superintendents, particularly William Reader, into a beautiful formal park in the late Victorian tradition. Park became a civic showcase and a botanical experiment. • by October 1908 site excavation was done and construction work began • February 1910 contractor Brocklebank and architects McLean and Wright visited Attleboro, Massachusetts Public Library which they had also designed. The architectural plans for Attleboro and Calgary were almost identical. • Calgary was Alberta's first public library and the first library structure in the province financed by wealthy American steel industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie. • During a 33 year period Carnegie financed 2,811 libraries world-wide. • construction completed in 1911, library officially opened January 2, 1912. • during the first three months, five thousand Calgarians (city's population was 40,000) became library members. • Central Park Library became the cultural centre of the city. Meeting place for educational and arts groups; Calgary Women's Literary Club, Historical Society of Calgary, Calgary Natural History Society, Calgary Arts Association. • home to Calgary College 1911-1915 (first attempt at establishing a University of Calgary) • in 1928 the park was re-named Memorial Park when Cenotaph was unveiled on Remembrance Day to commemorate the name change and those who died during the war. • building was Calgary's main library until 1963 when the six - storey W.R.Castell Library opened on Macleod Trail. • Memorial Park Branch library maintained in basement 1963-1967 • 1964-1973 building leased to Glenbow Foundation as an archives and research centre • declared a Provincial History Resource in 1976 • 1977 - $1.1 million interior/exterior rehabilitation project funded by municipal and provincial grants and private donations. • re-opened October 16, 1977 as Memorial Park Branch Library. Second floor space rented to Muttart Art Gallery. • in 2002 celebrating 90 years of library service to Calgarians, Memorial Park is one of 17 branch libraries in the Calgary Public Library system. “Then & Now” columns appeared weekly in the Calgary Herald between 2002 and 2005. The following article appeared June 4, 2002. Central/Memorial Park Library 1221 2nd St. S.W., 1912 THEN: • Central Park Library opened in January 1912 as Alberta's first purpose-built public library. American steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie paid 80 per cent of the $100,000 cost, while the city kicked in 20 per cent. It became the Memorial Park Library following the 1928 dedication of the war memorial at the park's west end, near 4th Street S.W. NOW: • The library building, designed by Boston architects and built of locally quarried sandstone, was designated a provincial historic resource in 1976. Today the Calgary Public Library has 16 branches, including Memorial Park, and is the second-largest public library system in Canada. “Cornerstones” were articles that appeared in the Sunday edition of the Calgary Herald between 1997 and 2000. The following article appeared June 20, 1999. Central (Memorial) Park • 4th Street and 13 th Avenue S.W. • Date developed: 1908 -- 1912 • Designers: H.G.Burrows, William Reader • Original owners: City of Calgary Historical highlights: • In the 1880s, the 4.78- acre block of land that ultimately became Central Park was reserved as part of the Canadian Pacific Railway's survey of the Calgary townsite, through the authority of William Pearce, an administrator of federal lands for the Department of the Interior. • In 1894, the city plowed the "barren scrub land" of Central Park for use as a nursery and distribution centre for the city's tree planting programs. As part of the "beautification" program, ratepayers were advised that spruce trees could be purchased for five cents each. • In 1900, the city hired a man, at $1.75 per day, to water city- owned trees in the district and maintain the park's newly-erected windmill. • G.J. Thorpe constructed a small bandstand (at the centre of the park) in 1904 at a cost of $310. • Although Central Park grounds were originally laid out in 1908 by British immigrant horticulturist H.G. Burrows, site development continued for several years as time and money allowed. From 1913 to 1942, the park flourished under the supervision of parks superintendent William Reader, former head gardener for Patrick Burns. The park design was a symmetrical pattern of lawns, beds and gravel paths. • In a 1993 article, City Heritage Planner Rob Graham described the park. "It is typical of civic parks and squares of the period in Britain and Canada and featured elaborate embroidery borders, edging and raised medallion carpets. (Reader) kept complete records of plant species which show that up to 20,000 annuals, colour-keyed for brilliancy, were planted yearly to satisfy what he considered the requirements of popular taste." Graham also explained that Reader's topiary treatment of the spruce (which is still maintained) is rare in Alberta. In fact, no other examples from the Edwardian era are known to exist in the province. • Construction of the Carnegie library at the park's east end began in 1909 and was completed by December 1911. • During the summer of 1909, the Scottish Pipers Band performed at Central Park. • In 1912, the small bandstand was torn down. A large pavilion, similar to the one in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, was constructed at the park's west end. During that summer, an underground sprinkler system was installed, a pergola which was divided into a series of vine-covered lattice work summer houses was constructed along the park's southern boundary and 1,400 trees and shrubs were planted. • n 1913 the area in front of the bandshell was cleared and covered with rolled cinders. A drinking fountain was installed. Newly-appointed Parks Superintendent William Reader installed two large Egyptian style urns, planted with palms, at the park's east end. • The South African War Memorial called "the Horseman of the Plains" located at the park's centre, was designed by noted French Canadian sculptor Louis Phillippe Hebert. At the time of its unveiling in June 1914, it was considered "one of the four finest equestrian statues in the world." • June 23, 1924, the First World War Memorial -- a bronze statue of an infantryman, designed by Montreal sculptor Coeur-de-lion MacCarthy --was unveiled at the park's east end. • The west end bandshell was demolished in 1928 for the construction of a cenotaph commemorating Calgary's war veterans. When the cenotaph was dedicated on November 11, 1928, the old Central Park was renamed Memorial. • In 1928, the Federal Geodetic Survey chose Memorial Park as the location for the city's benchmark elevation point. A seven-foot concrete column was sunk into the ground as "a reference point for all precise levelling benchmarks in Calgary and vicinity." The benchmark is 3,439.66 feet above sea level. • In 1939, a spectacular rose garden was developed for the royal visit of Their Majesties, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. • On August 17, 1953 the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada unveiled a monument to R.B. Bennett, Conservative prime minister of Canada 1930-1935, Calgary lawyer and member of Parliament. The pyramid-shaped monument at the park's southeast side was dedicated by Eric L. Harvie Esq. Q., Honorary Colonel of the Calgary Highlanders. • The cenotaph was refurbished in preparation for the Royal Canadian Legion's Dominion Convention, held in Calgary in 1994. • Central (Memorial ) Park is Calgary's oldest surviving park and one of the last remaining formal Edwardian parks in Western Canada. “Then & Now” columns appeared weekly in the Calgary Herald between 2002 and 2005. The following article appeared November 5, 2002. THEN: Central Park • The 1.91 hectares that was developed into Central Park beginning around 1908 quickly became a community focal point. In 1912, construction of Central Library was completed at the park's east end and a shell-shaped band pavilion at the west. Over the years, the park became home to memorials honouring soldiers of the Boer War (1899-1902), the First World War (1914-18) and the Second World War (1939-45). The Boer War statue "the Horseman on the Plains" was unveiled at the park's centre on June 24, 1914, only six weeks before the First World War was declared. NOW: Memorial Park • The park's east-end bandshell was demolished to accommodate construction of the cenotaph unveiled by Alberta's Lt.-Gov. William Egbert on Nov. 11, 1928. Inscribed "They shall not die while memory fulfils its task of gratitude" the simple white and gray shaft of marble and stone was originally erected in memory of fallen First World War soldiers. In later years, the monument was rededicated to include the Second World War and the Korean conflict. Annual Remembrance Day services were reintroduced in 1994 following the revitalization of the cenotaph and surrounding area.
CONTENTdm file name	1428.tif
CONTENTdm number	1424

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