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The Calgary Stampede has long been a part of Calgary history. In recognition of this year’s event, for 10 days a week (July 4-15), we’re sharing featured stock photos and highlights from the first 10 decades of the world’s greatest outdoor extravaganza. This installment: The stampede in the 1910s.
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1884: Calgary organizes a society to sponsor an agricultural fair. Calgary, population 506, becomes a city.
1886: First fair it is served by 500. Population now 2,000.
1889 – The society purchases land for the fairgrounds, which now forms Stampede Park.
1908: Calgary hosts the Dominion Exposition and builds new barns and the Industrial Building.
1911: Mutual betting is introduced in horse racing. A new cattle and horse show ground is built.
1912: Calgary’s “big four” Entrepreneurs and ranchers — AE Cross, Pat Burns, George Lane and AJ Maclean — to accept to finance the 1912 Stampede for $100,000.
1912: Guy Weadick introduces the first Calgary Stampede. There are no loading ramps and no eight-second rule. The horses are saddled and mounted in the middle of the arena. If the cowboy can stay in the saddle, they ride until the horse stops bucking. This could take up to 10 minutes.
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1912: Tom Three Persons, a cowboy from the Blood tribe, is the only Canadian in victory a championship in the 1912 Stampede, riding the outlaw horse Cyclone.
1916: A model military camp and trenches are built. built as a special feature of the Exhibition, during the First World War.
1916-17: The Exhibition features displays of aerobatics by American pilot Katherine Stinson, also known as “the flying schoolgirl”
1919: The second official “Stampede” occurs. Weadick hosts a “victory stampede” to celebrate the end of the First World War. The Prince of Wales visits Calgary, buys a nearby ranch and hosts rodeo champions there.
— Timeline compiled by Karen Crosby, Norma Marr, and Aimee Benoit.
