During the late 1870's and early 1880's, Fort Macleod, with its advantage of a central location within the grazing region, was an important rival for the stockmen's business, but by the 1890's, Calgary's transcontinental rail connection had tipped the scales in that town's favour. Calgary's growth between 1884 and 1894 was intimately related to the rapid expansion of the cattle industry during this decade. Calgary's merchant community, alert to the prosperity of the southwestern range, quickly provided the relevant services in the form of hotels, harness shops, livery stables and assorted general stores, as this 1885 picture of the shops along Atlantic (9th) Avenue fronting on the C.P.R. main line (lower left corner) attests. Moreover, through the offices of the Western Stock Growers' Association located in the town, Calgary gradually became the administrative headquarters of the cattle industry. This position was strengthened further by virtue of the fact that Calgary, with its railway connections, stockyards, meat processing plants and commission houses also became the financial centre through which most of the cattle country's business was transacted.
The cattlemen also made Calgary the centre of their social activities and in so doing gave the city a special character that endured long after the ranchers' political and economic influence waned. Calgary's oldest and perhaps most prominent club the Ranchmen's Club, survives as a visible reminder of the cattlemen's social presence in early Calgary. The cowboys' legacy is also directly sustained by the world-famous Calgary Stampede, a summer rodeo held annually since 1912.
