After completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886, Chinese immigrants began to migrate to the Prairies and eastern Canada. Small villages along the railway line gradually developed into small towns and cities; Calgary was one of them.
In the 1870s, Fort Calgary was a small village with a population of less than one hundred. It was officially incorporated as the Town of Calgary under the North-West Territories Ordinance on November 7, 1884 with a population of 506 people and began to grow after the arrival of the CPR line. Around 1885, a few Chinese laundrymen came to Calgary. In June 1888, the Calgary Herald, reported that Hop Sing came from Vancouver and opened a laundry, washing clothing at very low prices. Hence, he forced the other four Chinese laundries into a price war. The four competing businesses eventually united, reduced their prices simultaneously and forced Hop Sing out of business; he then decided to leave Calgary.
In 1888, a few Chinese laundrymen established their business on Stephen Avenue (now 8th Avenue SE) and Atlantic Avenue on the eastern side of the railway station. The existence of this embryonic Chinatown did not draw the attention of Western society until the outbreak of smallpox in 1892. In April, seven persons in Vancouver and Victoria died of smallpox. In June, a Chinese man returning from Vancouver to Calgary contracted the disease. Civil authorities immediately burnt the Chinese laundry he was living in and all its contents, and quarantined all its occupants in a shack outside the town. Blame was put on the Chinese for the subsequent three deaths. When four of the quarantined Chinese were released on August 2, 1892, a mob of over three hundred men smashed the doors and windows of the Chinese laundries, trying to drive the Chinese out of town. For three weeks, the North West Mounted Police had to protect Chinatown and its residents against further attack by the local Whites. This hostility discouraged many Chinese from coming to the city. By 1901, for example, there were only sixty-three Chinese in Calgary, about 1.5% of the city’s population. In that year, Chinatown had two restaurants, two grocery stores, one laundry, and a twenty-bed rooming house. Kwong Man Yuen Restaurant was by far the largest business.
Around 1900, some young Chinese men attended Sunday school classes at Knox Presbyterian Church to learn English. Dr. J.C. Herdman, Minister of the Church, tried in vain to get a building for mission work in Chinatown but was thwarted by local people who did not support the idea of introducing Christianity to “unassimilated Chinese heathens” and so refused to rent him a place. After Thomas Underwood, a devoted Baptist and a prominent contractor heard about this, he built a two-room frame building at 215 Smith Avenue (now 10th Avenue SW) in November 1901 and rented it to Dr. Herdman at a reduced rate so that he could establish a Chinese Mission. The following year he added a second storey for housing thirty-five pupils. As a result, a second Chinatown began to emerge around the Mission.
By 1910, Calgary had two small Chinatowns separated by the railway tracks. The First Chinatown, located on 8th and 9th Avenues SE, consisted of eight restaurants, a grocery store, a tailor shop and several laundries. The Second Chinatown, located on 10th Avenue SW, included the Chinese Mission, three restaurants, six laundries, three grocery stores, a tailor shop, and a row of Chinese dwellings. In both Chinatowns, the Chinese lived in quarters behind their business premises or rooming houses.
The Canadian Northern Railway announced in 1910 its proposed route into Calgary and considered constructing a hotel depot near the CPR station. Soon after this announcement, the value of properties in the two Chinatowns soared; the landlords immediately expelled the Chinese tenants and sold their properties. This made the Chinese realize that if they owned their properties, they would have a say in Chinatown. In September 1910, several wealthy Chinese merchants purchased a site at the intersection of 2nd Avenue South and Centre Street East, where they planned to establish a new Chinatown. Although the site was considered a “cheap dumping ground” of low-income families, the local residents still did not want a Chinatown in their neighbourhood. On October 4, 1910, they approached the city commissioners, and wanted them to set the Chinese to one section of the city, as you would set an isolation hospital. On October 13, a conference on the “Chinese question” was held in City Hall. The Chinese representatives were Lucy Kheong, President of the Chinese Empire Reform Association, and Ho Lem, representing the laundry interests. At the end, it was concluded that no matter where Chinatown was located, there would be objections from residents of the area. Thus, to all intents, the location of the Third Chinatown at the intersection of 2nd Avenue South and Centre Street was confirmed at the conference. By the late 1910s, all the remaining Chinese residents and businesses in the First and Second Chinatowns had moved out and left for the Third Chinatown.
In 1921, the Chinese population in Calgary reached 688 (649 male and 39 female) and most of them lived in Chinatown. Several associations such as Gee How Gong Shaw, Lum See Ho Tong, the Mah Association, Shuo Yuen Tong, and the Chinese National League were established on 2nd Avenue and Centre Street. After the Canadian government introduced the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923, the Chinese population across Canada began to decrease. For example, the Chinese population in Calgary declined from 1,045 in 1931 to about 800 in 1941.
During the 1950s, Calgary’s Chinatown encompassed about ten city blocks on the south bank of the Bow River. In 1966, the Downtown Master Plan included a proposal to construct a parkway road between 2nd and 3rd Avenues South, which would have resulted in the elimination of half of Chinatown. In response, a group of concerned Chinese citizens formed the Sien Lok Society and mobilized the Chinese community to oppose the plan. After the proposal was shelved, the Chinese community organized as the United Calgary Chinese Association (UCCA) in August 1969, which included twenty-four Chinese associations such as the Sien Lok Society, Chee Kung Tong, and the Mah Association. The UCCA worked as a common front to protect Chinatown and promote Chinese cultural and social activities.
In 1974, City Council delineated an area of about twenty hectares as “Chinatown,” designating it a Neighbourhood Improvement Program area. The Chinatown Development Task Force, formed in 1973, prepared the Calgary Chinatown Design Brief which recommended that Chinatown be retained and developed as a residential community for both Chinese and non-Chinese. It was approved by Council in 1976, marking the beginning of the rehabilitation of Calgary’s Chinatown.
By 1980, streets in Chinatown had been cleaned up and many old, derelict houses were demolished to make way for redevelopment projects. The Calgary Chinatown Development Foundation (CDF), formed by George Ho Lem, was an organization of about 170 professional and non-professional people. With funding from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the CDF constructed Oi Kwan Place, a senior citizens’ home, in 1976. Other high-rise buildings such as Bowside Manor, Bow Central Plaza (now known as Five Harvest Plaza), and Ng Tower Centre were also built. As these development projects were in progress, dissension between the UCCA and the CDF surfaced. In 1982, the CDF wanted high-density development for residential and commercial use in Chinatown but the UCCA wanted Chinatown to remain a low-density area, as originally recommended in the 1976 design brief, and called for small buildings and more medium-size apartment buildings. The dispute was complicated further in 1982 when some Chinatown landowners and businessmen established another organization known as the Chinatown Ratepayers Association of Calgary (CRAC) and asked for high-density development. Eventually, City Council hired an outside consultant to conduct a Chinatown design workshop and produced the Chinatown Area Redevelopment Plan in 1984. The Plan recommended medium to high density projects in the Chinatown core, and high density commercial land use at its perimeter. It also proposed construction of the Chinese Cultural Centre on the west side of the intersection of 2nd Street and 2nd Avenue Southwest (Daqing Avenue). In the 1980s, senior citizens’ homes such as Wai Kwan Manor and Wah Ying Mansion, and Chinatown Park, also known as Sien Lok Park, were built. Several old association buildings were demolished and replaced by new buildings. Streets were beautified and new Chinese lamp-posts installed. In the 1990s, the Chinese Cultural Centre and Calgary Chinatown Seniors Centre were completed.
With the addition of newer facilities, Calgary’s Chinatown has worked to attract visitors. The Cultural Centre has been organizing Chinese New Year celebrations since its opening in 1992. These celebrations draw twenty thousand visitors annually and are attended by many high ranking government officials, such as the premier and the mayor. The Calgary Chinatown Festival organized by the Calgary Chinese Merchants Association has been held every August since 2001 and has attracted upwards of seventy thousand participants who come to sample traditional Chinese arts and crafts, shop, and even play street hockey. Calgary’s Chinatown also celebrated its centennial in 2010 and the City of Calgary officially declared October 13 (the date in 1910 that City Council approved the construction and ownership of a building by Calgary’s Chinese) as Chinatown Day.
Chinatown continues to face the challenge of a dispersed Calgary Chinese population that can often meet its cultural needs closer to home. However, the strong tradition and the growing trade with China continue to fortify Chinatown. In 2012 the Oi Kwan Foundation completed a sixteen-storey building adding to the housing available to seniors in Chinatown. At the same time the popularity and diversity of restaurants in Chinatown is on the rise, many serving the businesspeople who conduct trade with China out of offices located there, and the demand for large venues to host weekend celebrations extends years into the future. This push for more services has seen the spread of Chinatown north on Centre Street to 16th Avenue, which was reported already 60 percent owned by Chinese Canadians in 1999. Chinatown businesses suffered as a result of the 2013 flood and have faced a major challenge in their efforts to recover. In 2015, much to the delight of business owners, Calgary’s Chinatown became a Business Revitalisation Zone (BRZ). This allows owners to jointly raise and administer funds to improve and promote their businesses. After the rehabilitation, Victoria and Vancouver Chinatowns retained many of their association buildings built before World War II and some characteristics of the early twentieth century Chinatown streetscape. For this reason they can be classified as “Rehabilitated Chinatowns”. In contrast, new high-rise buildings were constructed inside and around Calgary’s Chinatown. These changes virtually wiped out the pre-war buildings leaving few traces of the pre-war Chinatown landscape. Hence, Calgary’s Chinatown is best categorized as a “Replaced Chinatown” rather than a “Rehabilitated Old Chinatown”.
