HERITAGE PARK'S SANDSTONE HOUSE. - Free Online Library (2024)

Editor's note: In this article, Heritage Park curator Katie Braithwaite commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Sandstone House. Her article frames the two stories that follow. The first is Calgary Herald reporter Linda Curtis' 1954 item on Norman and Dodo Macleod's time in the house. The second is an extract from the memoir of Vera Burns, Heritage Park's original historian.

On May 19, 1973, Calgary's Heritage Park Historical Village opened for its tenth season. On that day fifty years ago, visitors had their first glimpse of a brand-new exhibit--the Sandstone House, a modified replica of Colonel James F. Macleod's final residence in Calgary.

The structure joined the living history museum's combination of early settler buildings moved in from around Alberta and new structures built in the park to represent early building types or to replicate specific buildings. When it opened in 1964, the park's exhibits included an Indigenous encampment, a Hudson's Bay Company fort, a pre-First World War railway village, and a railway with 4100 feet of track.

In 1969, it was decided that Heritage Park needed to bring a sandstone house to the site as a tribute to Calgary's heritage as the "Sandstone City." Calgary's architecture changed virtually overnight when a catastrophic fire broke out on November 7, 1886. It destroyed and damaged around twenty businesses causing $103,000 in damages or $2,000,000 in today's currency. (1)

The total insurance claimed was around $24,000 leaving many owners at a loss. (2) After the fire, Calgarians used sandstone to create more permanent structures instead of building swiftly constructed wooden buildings. This was the beginning of the sandstone era that lasted until the First World War.

Stephen Avenue, Calgary's main street, was lined with sandstone buildings. Each building was designed differently yet somehow looked similar to the next. Churches, schools, commercial buildings and even several mansions were built with the material. The stone came from many local quarries such as Sunalta Ravine (now covered by Crowchild Trail), the three Bow Bank quarries of Thomas Edworthy, Shaganappi Point (the Government of Canada quarries), and the three Elbow River quarries of Wesley Fletcher Orr, John McCallum, and James Butlin. The growth in sandstone saw the arrival of skilled stone masons from various locations, even as far as Scotland due to their long history of working with the material. The masons were paid roughly $1.50 per day. (3)

Paskapoo sandstone comes from the Paleocene Paskapoo formation which runs along the edge of the Rocky Mountains, across the Athabasca River into northern Alberta. The formation is between 58 and 65 million years old, which is considered relatively young in geological terms. (5) Softer than limestone, sandstone, which was abundant in the Calgary area, was easier to cut and carve and was more affordable. It hardens on exposure to the air and holds its shape very well, but some of it does not deal with the freeze and thaw cycles that hit Alberta every year. This was one of the reasons it was replaced as a building material with local brick. The First World War also contributed, as many trained workers were sent overseas, as did the rise in labour costs and the use of other materials. This saw quarries starting to close around 1914. The last one stopped operation in 1915.

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, many sandstone buildings were demolished and replaced by modern structures. Heritage Park and its staff historian, Vera Burns (nee Swanson, 1915-2003) decided to do what they could to preserve a part of Calgary's history and heritage.

The first idea was to move an existing building to Heritage Park but it was deemed too expensive and risky. Instead, the team set out to find materials and a building to replicate. Due to the availability of photographs and testimonials from previous tenants, the home of Colonel Macleod, which had been demolished in 1957, was chosen as a base design. Not only was it a bungalow, so easier to build, it had gingerbread trim around the roof which showed the style of the early 1890s. It was a good display house with a big kitchen and hall, and preservation attempts had been made to save it. The Macleods lived in this house for only four months before the colonel's death in 1894, but it was well-known locally as his final home. It is not known if he passed away inside the original sandstone house, but his body lay in state there for several days, and it was there that his funeral procession began. (6)

Born on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, James Farquharson Macleod (1836-1894) moved to Canada as a child in 1845. He became a lawyer and militia officer, and in 1874 he accepted a commission in the newly-formed North-West Mounted Police. From his post at Fort Macleod, he worked to end the whisky trade and established mercurial relationships with Indigenous peoples. Nonetheless, Isapomuxika (Siksika Chief Crowfoot), Mekaisto (Kainai Chief Red Crow) and other leaders cited Macleod and the NWMP as the reasons they agreed to sign Treaty 7 in 1877. By that time, Macleod had become NWMP Commissioner as well as a stipendiary magistrate. He resigned from the force in 1880 and remained a jurist and a member of the North-West Territories Council.

Macleod's wife, Mary Isabella (nee Drever, 1852-1933), became one of several women to sign Treaty 7. At age 17, she lived with her family in the Red River Colony at the time of the Red River Resistance of 1869-70. Some residents of the colony were outraged by the vast transfer of land to the newly-formed Dominion of Canada. The farmers and hunters, many of them Metis, formed a provisional government to deal with the land negotiations. The uprising led to the creation of Manitoba. During the uprising, Mary was able to smuggle a dispatch address in her dress past Metis guards at Red River. It was delivered to Colonel Wolseley who was leading a defensive against the uprising. Here, Mary met James Macleod. (7)

The original house was built in 1891 for James Bruce Smith (1849-1906), a lawyer from Lindsay, Ontario who became Calgary's city solicitor in 1899 and doubled as city comptroller in the last few weeks of his life. (8) The house was located at 1011-4 Avenue West (later redesignated as SW), which was on the south side of Bow River near the Louise Bridge. Smith lived in the house no more than a few years, although he owned it for the rest of his life. His many tenants included Colonel Macleod and his wife, Mary, in 1894. "We only lived there a few months," recalled the Macleods' daughter Mary Townsend in 1957, "so you see when people insist on calling it the old Macleod home they are entirely wrong." (9)

From 1898 to 1902, the sandstone house was home to William and Marion Carson. (10) New Brunswick-born William Carson (1854-1924) was a successful grain merchant, and he was elected to city council in 1902 but did not serve in office. Marion Young Carson (nee Coutts, ca. 1861-1950) was born in Ontario and came to Calgary with her husband in 1896. Marion spent her time bettering the lives of those around her, caring for the sick and fighting for basic human rights. Surprised by the number of people with tuberculosis, Marion's hard work allowed Alberta's first sanitorium to be built in 1910. She headed the Tuberculosis Society for eleven years, becoming an honorary member of the Canadian Tuberculosis Association in 1949. In addition to healthcare, education was a priority. Marion was a member of the school board, she organized a women's literary club, and helped to establish a central library in Calgary. She sat on the Alberta Council of Child and Family Welfare for twenty-seven years and formed the first group to feed the unemployed. Her services to the community earned her the King's Medal in 1938 and citizen of the year in 1946. (11)

Shoe merchant and sportsman John Alexander (J.A.) Palmer (1867-1960), a onetime president of the Calgary Curling Club, lived in the house around 1902-03 with his wife Kate (nee Shepard, 1871-1947) and their children. J.A. Palmer was from Sarnia, Ontario, and the couple retired to Enderby, B.C. in 1940. Smith's final tenant was W.E. Pearce in 1904.

Cynthia B. MacLaren (nee Heath, 1880-1950) bought the house in 1906, and she lived there with her husband, William MacLaren (1864-1941), who worked in the Land Titles Office and operated a coal and lumber business with his brother. The MacLarens moved to Leduc around 1918, the MacLarens rented the house to City Architect John B. Richards in 1919-22. The MacLarens' later tenants included land titles clerk Gordon C. Page in 1924, garage owner George Samuel Wayman (1882-1927) and his wife Mabel (1882-1944) between 1925 and 1929, Herbert Hollick-Kenyoun in 1930, milkman John Tawse in 1931-32, contractor Robert B. Menzies in 1933-40, Hermon Ross in 1943-45, and Rev. H. Russell Ross, the pastor of Trinity United Church, in 1948.

The MacLarens' final tenants were James and Mary Macleod's son, Norman Torquil Macleod (1880-1971) and Norman's wife, Joseline Muriel (nee Banfield, ca. 1895-1984), who was known as Dodo. They lived in the house between 1948 and the house's sale in 1956. (12) New owner Dr. John Campbell Sproule (1905-1970) was a petroleum geologist and a supporter of the Arctic Island mineral exploration. The Arctic Circle was a big passion of his, often saying that it would be a popular living place for Canadians by 2067. He moved to Calgary in 1951 and opened a consulting firm called J.C. Sproule and Associates. (13) Cam, as he was known, wanted to demolish the home and replace it with an office block surmounted by a helicopter pad. After protests from Colonel Macleod's family, including his granddaughter Alderman Mary Dover (nee Cross, 1905-1994), Sproule dismantled the house in October 1957. He left the sandstone bricks in a field, uncovered. (14)

When Vera Burns was looking for materials to build the replica house, she and colleagues at Heritage Park visited Sproule and the original stones, but the stones were deemed unsalvageable. Instead, they decided to reuse sandstone from other demolished buildings. The sandstone buildings were being torn down and replaced with a more modern material which showed how important this house was to build and preserve the past for other generations. They stockpiled sandstone blocks for over two years, keeping the stones well covered on site. (15)

While the stone was being collected, Vera worked with Dodo Macleod, who had lived in the house for eight years, to create a floor plan. They also discussed the interiors and furnishings to replicate the original as close as possible. No copies of the floor plan existed so they designed the house as best they could. It was a reduced version of the original house, missing an external privy, pantry and a maid's room. The replica has a basem*nt which the original house did not have, which kept it warmer for artefacts and visitors at Heritage Park. (16)

Masons and carpenters worked through the fall and winter of 1970 under polyester tents, the roof was started in the spring and was complete for the opening weekend in May. During fall and winter of 1971, the interior was complete. Vera Burns chose the wallpapers and carpets, woodwork finishes and other flooring. Furnishings were donated by the community, including Colonel Macleod's grandson Sandy Cross (1914-2003), who gave a mahogany sideboard, linens, china and crystals. Dodo gave a wardrobe, which was restored at the park before installation. There were many additional donations, including pieces from the Glenbow Museum. The house opened to the public on May 19, 1973, with a total cost of $71,000. (17)

Vera Burns and Heritage Park saw what was happening to sandstone buildings in the city and tried to save as much as they could by building the Sandstone House. Unfortunately, sandstone buildings have all but vanished in Calgary. Some of the remaining few were threatened by the short-lived Stephen Avenue Square proposal in 2022, which called for demolition of historic buildings and retention of facades only. (18) The disappearance of our most significant sandstone buildings will be a huge loss to Calgary's history and heritage. Some facades would remain but the others would be completely demolished. Historically designated buildings would be vulnerable if, as the proposal calls for, their status is withdrawn. The loss of heritage and history would be a dangerous precedent to set for other historical buildings protected by cities and provinces.

The Sandstone House offers Heritage Park's guests a place to learn about Colonel Macleod, the history of Calgary, and domestic life in the 1900s. "The house represents not only the sandstone era," Vera Burns observed, "but the period of growth in construction, industry, commerce and civil administration in the booming west." (19)

Katie Braithwaite is the Curator of Exhibits at Heritage Park where she is passionate about storytelling, preservation and history. With a background in the museum industry, archaeology and interior design she is experienced in creating new, exciting exhibit spaces and protecting the buildings, including Sandstone House.

Notes

(1.) "Calgary Scorched," Qu'Appelle Progress, 11 November 1886, 4.

(2.) Ibid.

(3.) Grant MacEwan, "Grant MacEwan," Calgary Herald, 26 May 1975, 27.

(4.) "Calgary: Sketch of the Coming Northwest Metropolis," Toronto Globe, 17 October 1891.

(5.) There is some debate about whether some of the sandstone is actually Porcupine Hills formation, not just Paskapoo.

(6.) Vera Burns, The Sandstone House (unpublished typescript, 1977).

(7.) Susan Jacket, "Mary Isabella Macleod," The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mary-isabella-macleod.

(8.) "Death of J.B. Smith City Solicitor." Daily Herald, 26 November 1906, 1.

(9.) Eva Reid, "Twin Debutantes in Formais Recall Walking to Ball," Albertan, 9 July 1957, 6.

(10.) Flora Carson, letter to Heritage Park Manager, Heritage Park Archive, 14 July 1974.

(11.) Vera Burns. "Marion Carson" (unpublished typescript, 31 July 1979).

(12.) City of Calgary Archives, tax rolls.

(13.) "Sproule Has Faith In Arctic Resources." Calgary Herald, 1 November 1967, 77.

(14.) Burns.

(15.) Ibid

(16.) Ibid.

(17.) Ibid.

(18.) Jason Herring, "Massive proposed development on Stephen Avenue would affect heritage sites," Calgary Herald, 12 May 2022, A1, A4.

(19.) Vera Burns, "Heritage Park--The First 8 Years" (unpublished typescript, 1977).

by Katie Braithwaite