Old postcards of Canadian cities. (Mostly Edmonton..)

vid · #1 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 10:58 AM**

I got a lot of postcards recently, mostly of places in the US but quite a few in Canada as well. Here are some of the postcards of Canada, mainly of Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary but there are a couple from other places, too.

Some of them are close to 70 years old, if not older. The postcards of Edmonton are particularly fun! It looks smaller than Regina!

Postcard by: CKC Canada

I think this is where the TD tower is now? Note the abundant persons.

Postcard by: Valentine Edy Company Limited, Winnipeg. Made in USA.

The old Eatons building in Winnipeg, demolished for the MTS Centre.

Postcard by: Valentine Edy Company Limited, Winnipeg. Made in USA.

Winnipeg Auditorium. Does this still exist? It's beautiful!

Postcard by: Valentine Edy Company Limited, Winnipeg. Made in USA.

Again, note the abundance of people!

Postcard by: Valentine Edy Company Limited, Winnipeg. Made in USA.

Parliament looks so lonely back there in the '40s. Lazy illustrators probably didn't help the issue, of course.

Postcard by: Valentine Edy Company Limited, Winnipeg. Made in USA.

Union Station. Lots of farmland back then, or just a lazy illustrator?

Postcard by: Valentine Edy Company Limited, Winnipeg. Made in USA.

Fort Garry Gate and the hotel.

Postcard by: J. H. Bell, 9852 67th Ave., Edmonton, Alta.
Photograph by: J. H. Bell

The description on the back is delightfully out dated! It reads..

Royal Alexandra Hospital
Kingsway Ave., Edmonton, Alberta
Edmonton's well-known ultra-modern hospital

Emphasis (and fruit) are mine. It isn't too old though, post-1965. (Not too post, though. Note the cars parked out front.)

Postcard by: J. H. Bell, 9852 67th Ave., Edmonton, Alta.
Photograph by: J. H. Bell

Edmonton! It looked so quaint!

Postcard by: Natural Color Production, Limited of Vancouver BC. It has a 6 cent stamp and is postmarked 11/11 1969.

New Westminster, BC, 38 years ago.

Postcard by: Provincial News Co., Edmonton Alberta

"Aerial view of the North Saskatchewan River Valley." It looks like they're building a tower in the distance. Which one?

Postcard by: Traveltime Prodcut, made in Vancouver, Canada by Grant-Mann Lithographers Ltd.

Calgary's 8th street. The Hudson Bay Company is on the right. Again, note the abundance of pedestrians.

Postcard by: United News (Wholesalers), Ltd., Calgary, Alberta
Photo by H. R. Bininda

CALGARY!

Postcard by: United News Company, Calgary, Alberta

The back of the card says "The new beautiful public library"!!!

Note the electric trolley bus on the right!

Postcard by: United News (Wholesalers), Ltd., Calgary, Alberta

8th Avenue again. HBC building behind, decorated with the Ensign and Union Flags.

Postcard by: Provincial News Company, Edmonton, Alberta

City Hall, CN Building, and a high-rise complex on the left.

Postcard by: Provincial News Company, Edmonton, Alberta

"Showing the Legislative Building, the Provincial Highways, Telephones and Administration Buildings, and the Federal Building"

Look at all that farmland!! That would be a great spot to build some new suburbs!

Postcard by: Provincial News Company, Edmonton, Alberta

"A view of the impressive skyline of Edmonton as seen from Saskatchewan Drive"

IT ACTUALLY SAYS THAT!!!

Though I guess it was impressive at the time, considering you guys only have about 300,000 people when this photo was taken.

Postcard by: Provincial News Company, Edmonton, Alberta

It says on the back: "Edmonton's impressive City Hall is the centre of a $71,000,000 Civic Centre Development, which will give Edmonton one of the finest downtown areas in all of Canada."

Did it work??

Postcard by: Western smallware and Stat. Co. Ltd., Wpg., Man.
Spectrome Color by Wilson, Dryden, Ont.
Made in Canada

"Winnipeg's new City Hall complex on Main Street, a few blocks north of Portage"

No impressive? No 71 million dollar project? Pfft. Y'know, I kinda like their city hall. But then, look at what I have to compare it to.. yeah.

FOUR CENTS!!!

FOUR!!!!!

Postcard by: CLC. Made in Canada

The next one is even better..

Postcard by: CLC. Made in Canada.

Look at all the people!! Don't you wish Hamilton still looked like that?

Postcard by: Prismaflex Color. Wilson, Dryden, Ontario
Photograph by H. Oakman

Kenora's apocolyptic yellow sky welcomes you!!!

Postcard by: Peterborough Post Card Company, Peterborough, Canada

"The Canadian Lakehead"
"Ontario Provincial Police shring with some of the thousands of tourists, the magnificent view of the Canadian Lakehead from Mount McKay Lookout."
"Fort William, Ontario, Canada"

Note the graffiti. Thunder Bay was a shit hole before it even existed.

Postcard by: Peterborough Post Card Company, Peterborough, Canada

Ore dock and elevators at the Lakehead Cities, Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada

The Ore dock has been dismantled and all that remains is the concrete core. Manitoba Pool 3 became Agricore B and is now owned by Viterra. It's vacant but maintained in case Western Canada's farmers have a "banner year" LOL. Canada Maltin still exists, and it well used. It recently got a fresh coat of paint.

Postcard by: Peterborough Post Card Company, Peterborough, Canada

UGG (one the left) is now Agricore A Terminal. Alberta Pool 9 was demolished a long time ago, there is nothing left of it. Sask Pool A and B are vacant, I think. They're now owned by Viterra anyway. The James Richardson Elevator is to the right, out of frame. When this photo was taken, the elevator on the left was the second largest in the world. The largest was about 4 miles south, to the right of the last pic.

That's all.

Dylan Leblanc · #2 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 11:20 AM**

I collect postcards like that as well. nice to see some of your cards, I want them!

vid · #3 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 11:23 AM**

PM if you're serious, I'm pretty sure we're trying to sell them or something?

#4 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 11:31 AM**

Nice photos!

Canada's cities were so little back then.

vid · #5 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 11:40 AM**

What are you talking about? Thunder Bay has been the same size ever since!

drew · #6 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 3:50 PM**

The Winnipeg Auditorium still exists. It currently houses the provincial archives and the Hudson Bay archives...

SHOFEAR · #7 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 4:12 PM**

Quote:

"Aerial view of the North Saskatchewan River Valley." It looks like they're building a tower in the distance. Which one?

What is now known as Telus, tallest west of Toronto when built.

SteelTown · #8 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 4:14 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

The next one is even better..

Postcard by: CLC. Made in Canada.

All of those buildings are still there expect that building to the right with the clock at the top and of course Gore Park is still around.

Coldrsx · #9 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 4:23 PM**

wicked, thanks!

1ajs · #10 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 5:29 PM**

then

now

Aylmer · #11 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 5:33 PM**

I saw a post card that read '' Ottawa's skyline"

But it was unifonmaly black...

I'm hurt.

Rico Rommheim · #12 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 5:45 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

What are you talking about? Thunder Bay has been the same size ever since!

He was talking about cities, vid. Not small villages

ReginaGuy · #13 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 6:28 PM**

Thunder bay couldnt think of anything better than a grain elevator to put on their post cards?

CanadianCentaur · #14 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 6:35 PM**

Note all these British flags up front!

I remember Edmonton's old City Hall, which was built ca. 1957, pretty well as a kid. My foster mother used to work there as a secretary, I kind of remember what the council chamber was like there, too.

Quote:

The postcards of Edmonton are particularly fun! It looks smaller than Regina!

Most, if not all, those postcard pics posted of Edmonton seem to date from the 1960s, and particularly the late '60s. Edmonton's city proper population during the 1960s was generally from 270,000 in 1960 to about 430,000 by 1970 - quite a bit bigger than Regina today.

big W · #15 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 10:48 PM**

What I think is intresting is how much Edmonton has changed in this amount of time. When my dad first moved out here in the 70's from Montreal he would mention it was like going to a small village, which to me did not compute, until you see pics like this and the one posted a while back showing single family houses right by the Legislature. My things have changed so much in this city in one persons lifetime.

vid · #16 Posted **Dec 10, 2007, 11:27 PM**

Yes, the post cards of Edmonton are very contrasting to today. That's the main reason I posted these. It has really changed a lot in 40 years. And 40 years before those pictures were taken, it has a smaller population than the Lakehead.

We might be the Gibraltar of the West but obviously that doesn't count for much. There was also a post card of Thunder Bay from the airport but I've posted a version of it before. These postcards are from a woman that lived in Colorado for a while then moved here, or something. They're all from about 1939 to 1976 or so, with a couple after that. The vast majority are Pennsylvanian covered bridges.

I have some post cards showing Thunder Bay's skyline (which needless to say is at least 60% elevators) and the waterfront and older ones had things like the city gates (when they existed) and businesses, landmarks, etc. I'd make a thread but no one cares.

The only postcards I have of Ottawa are one showing the Peace Tower and another showing the entrance of it. Not many skyline shots, unfortunately.

DizzyEdge · #17 Posted **Dec 27, 2007, 6:28 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

Postcard by: United News Company, Calgary, Alberta

The back of the card says "The new beautiful public library"!!!

Quoted from the list of reasons the calgary public library needs a new main branch "Architecturally indistinguished and unwelcoming"... guess they forgot the 'beautiful' in that sentence.

I was going to do present day photos of the Calgary streetscapes, but they actually pretty much look the same..the only building change is the building just past the library has been replaced with a police admin building.

skyscraper_1 · #18 Posted **Dec 27, 2007, 10:24 PM**

Here is a postcard of the corner of Hollis and Bishop Street in Halifax.

SpongeG · #19 Posted **Dec 27, 2007, 11:47 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by big W

What I think is intresting is how much Edmonton has changed in this amount of time. When my dad first moved out here in the 70's from Montreal he would mention it was like going to a small village, which to me did not compute, until you see pics like this and the one posted a while back showing single family houses right by the Legislature. My things have changed so much in this city in one persons lifetime.

i remember edmonton before "the mall" even existed

it certainly changed a lot even in my lifetime

I remember when the whitemud was a slow long drive with traffic lights and slowness and than it turned into a traffic light free freeway and getting to millwoods was a breeze from the WEM area...

Only The Lonely.. · #20 Posted **Dec 28, 2007, 3:41 AM**

Main Street Winnipeg

Downtown Winnipeg

And postcards of some of Winnipeg's and Western Canada's earliest skyscrapers.

Winnipeg's other train station (CP)..

St.Boniface Basilica