Indigenous peoples roamed Alberta for thousands of years, or even tens of thousands of years. The rim of the river valley and its ravines and hilltops in Edmonton are known to have been well-used as campgrounds and look-out points during this time. Rabbit Hill, today's Mary Lobay Park, Mount Pleasant Cemetery and Huntington Heights (near Whitemud Drive west of Calgary Trail) are known to be sites of human activity for millennia.[citation needed] As well, the "Old North Trail" of the Blackfoot goes through present-day Edmonton, as it goes from Mexico to the Barren Lands up north. (Part of it survives is preserved as the Great Western Trail through the U.S.) At about Edmonton the Trail branched, with one branch going through present-day site of Ft. Assiniboine and toward western Arctic lands; the other branch going NE then breaking north to descend the Athabasca River. Some conjecture that the Trail's crossing of the North Saskatchewan River at the site is the reason for the siting of fur-trade posts in Rossdale.[1][2][3]
1802 - Fort Edmonton (Hudson's Bay Company) moves to Rossdale.
1810 - Fort Edmonton (Hudson's Bay Company) moves to near Smoky Lake.
1812 – Fort Edmonton (Hudson's Bay Company) moves to Rossdale, never again to move out of today's Edmonton. This is start of Edmonton's recorded permanent occupancy.[6]
1821 the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company merge, and fur-trade activities at Edmonton are concentrated in Fort Edmonton.
1824 - Horse packtrail established to connect Fort Edmonton to HBC's Fort Assiniboine, which serves as trans-shipment point on the Athabasca River, part of the Mackenzie River watershed flowing to the Arctic.[7]
1830 – Fort Edmonton moves up the hill, to near today's legislative building. From 1830 to 1860, the fur trade in western Canada uses Edmonton as a prominent transshipment point connecting the prairies with New Caledonia (interior BC) and with the fur trading posts up north. By 1860s ships are sailing from the Atlantic Ocean "around the Horn" to the west coast, and that more and more causes a decline in the importance of Edmonton as a transportation link.[8]
1859-1860 - Gold rush in the Cariboo region of BC leads to gold-panners coming to Edmonton. Among them Thomas Clover, who founds settlement at Clover Bar. (Later dredges are used to mine gold from river bed.)[9][10]
1870 – Fort Edmonton and environs becomes part of Canada and of the North-West Territories.
1871 – The first prominent buildings outside the walls of Fort Edmonton, a Methodist church mission building and manse, built by George McDougall and his family, formerly of Victoria Settlement. They add mix to the existing campsites and log cabins of gold prospectors, frontier farmers and hunters, Indigenous, European and Métis, who live in the bush where City of Edmonton sits today.
1874 - North-West Mounted Police arrive. Second Patrol, a spin-off of the main March West, arrives in exhausted dribs and drabs Oct. 29-Nov. 2
1875 - Arrival of first sternwheeler/steamboat Northcote.
1876
Donald Ross opens Edmonton's first hotel
Treaty 6 is signed by representatives of the Queen and local Native leaders. Title to the Edmonton region is ceded to the Crown, excepting promised Indian reserves of Enoch and Papaschase, in return for treaty obligations on the part of the Crown (and the Canadian government). (The Papaschase reserve, on the site of Mill Woods and Southgate mall, was never established.)[11]
As new arrivals try to take up residence in Edmonton area where people are already living, a violent struggle arises between "old timers" and the new "squatters". Matthew McCauley is named to head a settlers rights protective association (in local parlance "a vigilance committee"). He and others throw a squatter's shack over the edge of the river valley.[12]
Dominion Land Survey is conducted in Edmonton area. Fixes in place a mixture of riverlots along river and square sections elsewhere. It helps firm up local land ownership.
1883 - Edmonton, at the time an unincorporated hamlet, elects Frank Oliver as its first representative to the NWT Territorial Council.
1885 - Telephone service begins with just two telephones
1886 – Edmonton's coldest temperature is recorded, as −49.4°C (−56.9°F) January 19.[13]
1891
Calgary and Edmonton Railway is completed from Calgary to the south bank of North Saskatchewan River, across from the Edmonton settlement.
Edmonton incorporated as a town with a population of 700. Covered what is now downtown, north of the river.[15][16]
Edmonton's first town election. Matt McCauley elected mayor.
Rat Creek Rebellion - Mayor McCauley and an armed mob prevent transfer of Dominion land office to "South Edmonton" (Strathcona). The mob stands off a NWMP force that arrives to establish law and order. When tempers cool, a separate land office is established in South Edmonton. Edmonton hires its first constable. [17]
1896 - Edmonton pioneer, newspaperman and NWT Council member Frank Oliver is elected as MP for Alberta.[18]
1897 – Edmonton is a starting point for people making the trek overland to the Klondike Gold Rush. Nearby South Edmonton (Strathcona) was the northernmost railway point on the western Prairies. (But Edmonton was still about 3000 kilometres from the goldfields.)
Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific Railway is built on the Low Level Bridge to connect Rossdale Station in Edmonton on the north side of the river by rail to Strathcona and thence to the outside world. In 1906 railway line is extended from Rossdale west to 124 Street and up out of the river valley, then back east along 104 Avenue to downtown Edmonton.
First car in Edmonton is unloaded off the train that brought it. Owner, Joe Morris.
1904
Incorporated as a city with a population of 8,350.[15] First mayor, Kenneth MacKenzie.
Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) arrived in Edmonton, accelerating growth. The first railway line in Edmonton to directly connect to Winnipeg, it is completed as a transcontinental line in 1915.
1907-13 – Real estate and construction boom. With amalgamation of the cities of Strathcona and Edmonton, the population of Edmonton grew to 72,500.[15]
1907
Six miners die in a fire at the Strathcona Coal Company, near south end of today's High Level Bridge, the worst industrial accident Edmonton has suffered
First paving blocks laid on McDougall Avenue, now 101 Street.
University of Alberta established in Strathcona and began instruction. First convocation
1909
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway enters Edmonton.[20][circular reference] Built its roundhouse and railyard northwest of Edmonton. Village of West Edmonton established in 1910. Later took the name Calder.[21]
Edmonton amalgamated with the city of Strathcona, a city since 1907, south of the North Saskatchewan River; as a result, the city extended south of the river.
High Level Bridge opened. It carried a CPR rail-line and streetcar lines as well as a two-lane road for private vehicles (both horse-drawn and gas-fueled) and sidewalks for pedestrians.
Edmonton economy collapses. With completion of Legislative Building and High Level Bridge, unemployment became problem. Land in the Hudson's Bay Co reserve was put on the market and sold, with the money raised by the sales going to HBC headquarters out of the province. British investment dried up as Europe invested in military preparation for the coming war. This all caused real estate prices to drop. With the start of World War I, the city's population declined, going from 72,000 in 1914 to under 54,000 in only two years, people leaving to eke out existence on farms, or off to war, or to other centres.[15]
The Hotel Macdonald in downtown Edmonton
1914 - Vote held on street naming system (following amalgamation of Strathcona and Edmonton, each with their own systems) Numerical numbering (centred on Jasper Avenue and 101 Street) got 2099 votes; "Edmonscona" scheme (a mixed number-name system) got 1471 votes.[25]
1921 - first woman elected to the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton - Liberal Nellie McClung
1922
CJCA begins broadcasting as city's first radio station.
Edmonton Grads win the Canadian Basketball Championship. The team wins this competition each year from 1922 to 1940.
Edmonton Eskimos football team, owned by local Elks society, took the name Edmonton Elks in October 1922. At first known as the Edmonton Rugby Foot-ball Club, the team had taken the name Eskimos. By 1922 that name was thought to be inappropriate to the team as it "did not connote any qualities desired in football players" and "it begot a false notion of the geographical position of Edmonton." The team disbanded during WWII. (see 1954) (Today's Edmonton Elks have taken the team's old name).[27][28][29]
1932 – Edmonton Hunger March in December. A demonstration by struggling workers and farmers is repressed by billyclub-wielding police, some on horseback. Subsequently, police raid the Hunger March headquarters. 27 arrested.[32][33]
1933 - First traffic light begins flashing, at the 101st Street and Jasper Avenue intersection.[34]
1935 – Edmonton elected its first Social Credit MLAs.
1937 – Edmonton's hottest temperature (until 1998) is recorded as 37.2°C on June 29.
late 1940s and 1950s – The subsequent oil boom gave Edmonton new status as the "Oil Capital of Canada", and during the 1950s, the city increased in population from 149,000 to 269,000.[15] After a relatively calm but still prosperous period in the 1960s, the city's growth took on renewed vigour concomitant with high world oil prices, triggered by the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The oil boom of the 1970s and 1980s ended abruptly with the sharp decline in oil prices on the international market and the introduction of the National Energy Program in 1981; that same year, the population had reached 521,000.[15]
1980s – Although the National Energy Program was later scrapped by the federal government, the collapse of world oil prices in 1986 and massive government cutbacks kept the city from making a full economic recovery until the late 1990s.[36]
The path taken by the F4 Edmonton tornado in 1987. The F numbers are for the Fujita values, the O is for Imperial Oil Strathcona and Petro-Canada refineries, P is the Edmonton Power Clover power station and C is for the Celanese Canada chemical plant.
1987 – Edmonton tornado kills 27 and causes more than $300M damage.
1987 - Celebration of Stanley Cup win on Jasper Avenue turned into riot. Dozens arrested.[39]
1991 – Hotel Macdonald reopened after significant restoration and a change in ownership.
Largest residential fire in Edmonton's history burns down a 149 unit condominium complex, which was under construction, along with 18 duplexes. Causing $20 million in damages.[43]
2008 – Edmonton region population surpasses one million becoming the most northern city in North America with a population over one million.
Anthony Henday Drive is officially completed with the opening of its northeast section, including two new bridges over the river, on October 1.[52] It is the furthest north ring road in North America.[citation needed]
↑ McCarty, Richard Frances (1976). Fort Assiniboine, Alberta, 1823-1914: fur trade post to settled district. Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta. p. 13
↑ Herzog, Lawrence (October 24, 2002). "Another Look at Strathconas Pioneer Merchants." It's Our Heritage Vol. 20 No. 43. Published online by Real Estate Weekly.
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