Calgary's remarkable growth during the first decade of the century was reflected both in the community's vastly increased population and in an extension of the city boundaries. The latter development, which was greatly facilitated by the building of electric street railways and the growing use of the motorcar, had important social consequences. By the First World War the mixed residential areas were increasingly giving away to more sharply defined working-class, middle-income, and exclusive suburbs.
Calgary's first, real luxury suburb, Mount Royal, was developed after 1905. By that date there already were a number of those "old families" who had been in the area for almost a generation and who had made fortunes in real estate, ranching, meat packing and other business endeavours. To ensure that "standards" were maintained, all residences in Mount Royal had to meet certain building specifications and guidelines. The fact that Mount Royal was a CPR subdivision stands as a further reminder of the pervasive role played by the railway in the city's growth. Quite apart from the important place of Montreal capital in western development, the creation of a new Mount Royal in the West says a great deal about the eastern city's social preeminence during the period. Mount Royal was the crucial factor determining the rise of southwest Calgary as the premier residential quadrant of the city.
The imposing twenty-eight room mansion in the upper left of this 1916 photograph was built for Eugene Coste, a geologist and engineer who made some of the first Alberta natural gas discoveries, and who subsequently formed the Canadian Western Natural Gas, Heat, Light and Power Company. Is there a similar suburb in your own community? When was it begun and by whom? Have the exclusive character and boundaries been preserved?
