Rummaging in a basket at a thrift store, I found a small tourist pamphlet dated 1902 touting Calgary. Published by the Board of Trade, City Council of Calgary, the little 30-page brochure was such a fun read!
“The country surrounding Calgary has been especially favored by nature in more ways than one.” Then all the wonders of nature were extolled.
“It may be safely said, for the meterological records amply prove it, that there is no place in the western hemisphere that enjoys more bright sunshine the year around than Central and Southern Alberta.”
“Free homesteads may be secured within from 3 to 20 miles of the city, and improved farms and ranches can be purchased at reasonable prices.”
“The capitalist will find in Calgary an interesting and profitable field for investment; the existing channels for investment are legion.”
“The Calgary district offers high wages to good domestic servants. In the city of Calgary, $10 and $12 per month is the common wage for household work.”
“The invalid will find in Calgary a gracing and pleasant climate to recuperate his health. The virtues of its invigorating ozone and almost continual sunshine are becoming universally extolled.”
Prices: “Butter, 18cents per pound; potatoes, 1penny per pound; eggs, 15cents per dozen; poultry, 12cents per pound; pork, 6cents per pound; beef, 2 cents per pound.”
No wonder “936 homesteads were taken up and 41,000 acres of Canadian Pacific Railroad Lands purchased during the year of 1901.” (The land was purchased for $3.00 per acre.)
Did your ancestor settle permanently or temporarily in Calgary?? Sounds like a wonderful place, no?
This is where my grandmother, born in Iowa, ended up after living all over Alberta for about 20 years. My grandfather had deserted the family, leaving her to raise the younger children on her own; she had to take my youngest uncle to an orphanage during the days because he was too young to attend school. After little Sidney’s death in 1944, my mother and three of her sisters, all born in Iowa, came back to the US and ended up in western Washington. I wrote about part of that story here: https://skcgs.blogspot.com/2025/03/barb-and-bob-ted-and-lola.html. My mother did not have good memories of Calgary, but some of her siblings stayed there and I have cousins there now! I had no clue it was so sunny! Thanks for this look at the advertising; perhaps something like this lured my grandfather there in the late 20s.