John Hextall was a landowner who founded the community of Bowness, now part of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
John Hextall was born in 1861 at Canonbury House in Islington, London, England, the fourth child of a wealthy silk merchant. After training as a solicitor, he married Alice Delphine Dunn in 1884 and the couple had three children, Alice Violet, Maud Eleanor and Leonard John. In 1908, perhaps for health reasons, Hextall brought his family to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where at first he began ranching with a partner, Frank Shackle. [1]
In 1908, Hextall bought the Bowness Ranche (not to be confused with the Bow Valley Ranche), a tract of land of 2481.65 acres situated a few miles west of Calgary on the banks of the Bow River. The purchase price was "$94,000 and no more" [2] and Hextall received title on August 4, 1910. [3]
At this time, thanks to the recently arrived Canadian Pacific Railway, Calgary was a fast-growing community of 44,000 [4] with a booming real estate market. Hextall quickly saw the possibility of developing his ranch into a garden suburb for the wealthy who would be able to live in country homes along the banks of the river in close proximity to the city. He subdivided part of his land, built a bridge, and got the City of Calgary to run its streetcar line across the bridge into his development, which he called Bowness Estates. In return, he donated two islands on the Bow to the City, for use as a park.
Despite an aggressive advertising campaign, and many improvements to the property, including a golf club, Bowness Estates never took off. First there was a slump in the economy, then the first world war broke out.
Hextall died on April 19, 1914, and is buried in the Union Cemetery in Calgary. The area he had subdivided eventually became the village, then the town of Bowness, which grew rapidly after the second world war and was annexed by the City of Calgary in 1963. The bridge he built in 1911 still stands. Used now for pedestrian and bicycle traffic it was officially named the John Hextall Bridge in 1986.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Retrieved on January 15, 2011Samuel Henry Harkwood Livingston born in Ireland, he came to Canada following an unsuccessful venture in the Californian gold rush of 1849, and eventually found his way to Jumping Pound, North-West Territories, in 1873 where he opened a trading post. He was going to settle near the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers in 1875 but, when the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) arrived and established Fort Calgary, Livingston and his family moved further up the Elbow River to the current location of the Glenmore Reservoir. When the Glenmore Dam was built and the area flooded, part of the Livingston house was preserved and now stands at Heritage Park. Sam Livingston was an important man to Alberta's history. The Glenmore Reservoir gets its name from Sam too; Sam and Jane started a school on their farm that Sam named 'Glenmore School' after a place in Ireland. Glenmore is a village in County Kilkenny and quite close to his birthplace in County Wicklow.
Cochrane is a town in the Calgary Metropolitan Region of Alberta, Canada. The town is located 18 km (11 mi) west of the Calgary city limits along Highway 1A. Cochrane is one of the fastest-growing communities in Canada, and with a population of 32,199 in 2021, it is one of the largest towns in Alberta. It is part of Calgary's census metropolitan area and a member community of the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB). The town is surrounded by Rocky View County.
Exshaw is a hamlet in Alberta, Canada within Municipal District (MD) of Bighorn No. 8. Located approximately 90 kilometres (56 mi) west of downtown Calgary and 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of Canmore, Exshaw is situated within the Bow River valley north of the Bow River.
The Calgary Herald is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Publication began in 1883 as The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate, and General Advertiser. It is owned by the Postmedia Network.
Bowness is a neighbourhood and former town in west Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The former town was amalgamated into the City of Calgary in 1964.
Deerfoot Trail is a 46.4-kilometre (28.8 mi) freeway segment of Highway 2 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It stretches the entire length of the city from south to north and links suburbs to downtown via Memorial Drive and 17 Avenue SE. The freeway begins south of Calgary where it splits from Macleod Trail, crosses the Bow River into city limits, and reaches the Stoney Trail ring road. Crisscrossing twice more with the river, it intersects Glenmore Trail and Memorial Drive; the former is a major east–west expressway while the latter is a freeway spur into downtown. In north Calgary, it crosses Highway 1 and passes Calgary International Airport before ending at a second interchange with Stoney Trail. Highway 2 becomes the Queen Elizabeth II Highway as it continues north into Rocky View County towards Edmonton.
Rocky View County is a municipal district in southern Alberta, Canada that is named for its views of the nearby Rocky Mountains to the west. It surrounds most of Calgary, forming the city's northern boundary and most of the city's western and eastern boundaries. At a population of 41,028 in 2021, Rocky View County is the most populous municipal district in Alberta. Though predominantly rural in nature, Rocky View County is home to 14 hamlets, including Langdon, one of Alberta's most populous hamlets. Its rural areas are home to numerous country residential subdivisions.
The Plus 15 or +15 is a Skyway network in Calgary, Alberta. It is the world's most extensive pedestrian skywalk system, with a total length of 16 kilometres and 86 bridges connecting 130 buildings as of 2022. Calgary often has severe winters and the walkways allow people to get around the city's downtown more quickly and comfortably. The busiest parts of the network saw over 20,000 pedestrians per day in a 2018 count.
Daryl Kenneth "Doc" Seaman was a Canadian oilman and hockey executive. Seaman was the founder, president, and chairman of Bow Valley Industries Limited, which was one of Canada's largest independent petroleum companies. In addition to his business activities, from 1941 to 1945 he served as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force and from 1980 to 2009 was a part-owner of the Calgary Flames.
Alberta Provincial Highway No. 8, commonly referred to as Highway 8, is a highway in Southern Alberta that connects Highway 22 in Rocky View County, just north of Redwood Meadows, to Calgary.
Patrick Burns was a Canadian rancher, meat packer, businessperson, senator, and philanthropist. A self-made man of wealth, he built one of the world's largest integrated meat-packing empires, P. Burns & Co., becoming one of the wealthiest Canadians of his time. He is honoured as one of the Big Four western cattle kings who started the Calgary Stampede in Alberta in 1912.
Charles Allan Stuart was a Canadian politician and jurist in the province of Alberta. Born in Canada West and educated in the same area after it became Ontario, he came west in 1897 and set up a law practice in Calgary. After a failed election bid to the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, he was elected to the Calgary City Council and then to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. He resigned before the end of his term in the latter body to accept a judgeship on the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories. He was later appointed to the new Supreme Court of Alberta. He was also the first Chancellor of the University of Alberta, serving in that capacity from 1908 until his death in 1926.
Beynon is an unincorporated community in central Alberta, Canada.
Bridgeland-Riverside, formerly known as Bridgeland and Germantown, is a neighbourhood in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, is located northeast of Downtown Calgary. It is bounded to the south by the Bow River, to the east by Deerfoot Trail, to the west by Edmonton Trail and to the north by the community of Renfrew.
Fairview is a residential neighbourhood in the southeast quadrant of Calgary, Alberta. It is bounded to the north by Glenmore Trail to the east by Blackfoot Trail, to the south by Heritage Drive and to the west by Macleod Trail. Fairmount Drive bisects the neighbourhood from north to south and Chinook Centre is located northwest from the community. Fairview features homes built in the late 1950s and early 1960s on what are now considered large lots. Many are in the 1,000 sq ft range with most being bungalows. Many homes are still owned and occupied by the original owners. One of the smaller communities in Calgary with about 1,200 single family homes.
Raymond Murray Patterson was an Oxford educated writer and explorer of the Canadian northwest.
Calgary is a city in the Canadian province of Alberta. It is the largest city in Alberta and the largest metro area within the three Prairie Provinces region. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in Canada.
Pearce Estate Park is a city park located in Calgary, Alberta. The park occupies 21 hectares along the Bow River to the east of downtown Calgary. The park contains Pearce Estate Wetland, described as "constructed wetlands filled with native plants and animals". The land was donated to the city around 1929 by then prominent Calgarian William Pearce.
Bowness Park is a 30-hectare (74-acre) urban park on the Bow River in Bowness, a neighbourhood in the northwest quadrant of the City of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is popular in the summer for picnics and boating, and in winter for ice skating on the lagoon and the canal which feeds it.
William Charles James Roper Hull was a Canadian rancher, meat packer, businessman, and philanthropist. He played a prominent role in western Canada's early economic development by integrating a systematic approach to cattle raising, meat processing, and retailing on a large scale in Alberta.