The oldest building in Calgary was built before Canada had telephones
There’s a building in Calgary you may not have ever noticed before but it’s worth paying attention to since it’s not only the oldest in the city but also one of the oldest in the province!
Built between the years 1876 and 1881, the Hunt House has seen the area where it was built completely transform in over a century.
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Located next to the Deane House, it makes sense that it was also built in Calgary’s oldest neighbourhood ā Inglewood.
While the Deane House is iconic in the city, you would be forgiven for not taking notice of the small log cabin built directly beside it around 30 years earlier.
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According to The Heritage Resources Management Information System (HeRMIS), it is historically significant because of its links to the Hudson’s Bay Company. It speculates the Hunt House was likely the home of a freighter or interpreter with the company.
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The Hunt House is one of only 25 existing buildings still standing from before 1882 in Alberta and the fourth oldest across the whole province.
“It remains one of only three HBC buildings still standing in the province and thus provides a vital historic connection to the company that established so much of the early economy, transportation network, and social life of what would become Alberta,” reads the HeRMIS website.
According to the International Telecommunication Union, the first public telephone in Canada was installed in Lancefieldās Stationery Store in Hamilton Ontario on February 1, 1881. It didn’t have a coin collector and customers had to pay the storekeeper. The first phone call ever made in Alberta was placed in 1885 between Fort Edmonton and the St. Albert mission, well after the Hunt House was built.
You can even take a virtual exhibit tour of the Hunt House right now on the Fort Calgary website. You’ll learn so much about the area and its construction, including why it’s believed to be built by buffalo hunters and not farmers.
And if you’re wondering what the oldest building in Alberta is, you’ll have to head north to St.Albert. The Father Lacombe Chapel was built in 1861, making it the oldest building in the whole province!
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