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    • ONE MOMENT IN TIME… WITH RALPH KLEIN

    Rod and Ralph at the Louis

    There is a lot going on these days down on the lands known as the East Village, that 49 acre parcel between Fort Calgary and the downtown core, and the Bow River on the north and 9 avenue SE on the south.

    But first, a little history.

    As the CPR pushed the main line west in 1882-83, it was generally acknowledged that the new townsite to be known as Calgary would be east of Fort Calgary, where the wonderful community of Inglewood now exists.

    Land speculators, being land speculators, immediately began snapping up all that land which they believed they could then flip to the CPR for some handsome profits.

    However, the CPR, being the CPR, (the closest thing to a local monarchy we have ever had), didn’t intend to be taken to the cleaners by Calgary’s first generation of land developers.

    After having safely secured the lands to the west of Fort Calgary, particularly the strip along where the Palliser Hotel now stands, the railroad publicly announced that the townsite would be situated there, and the Inglewood boom went bust, as did many of the land speculators.

    So, what would be some of the things to spring up around the new train station and townsite?

    Hotels – including the now-legendary St. Louis Hotel.

    In the picture accompanying this column is a picture that tells a story about the St. Louis Hotel – one moment in time.

    THE SPEECH CHAREST SHOULD GIVE

    Ladies and Gentlemen, le Premiere Ministre de Quebec: “Good evening my fellow citizens of Quebec, including many of you in Alberta who have gone to work out there because there are no jobs back here. I am speaking to you tonight from the Cabinet Room in the historic National Assembly building in Quebec City. This wonderful parliament building is just [...]

    Who do you love...?

    A MARRIAGE, AND AN AFFAIR

    And then, after all that, they changed their minds. After 27 days of carefully following the Alberta provincial election campaign and consistently telling the pollsters they were going to do one thing, Alberta voters on late Sunday night, and many in the voting booth on Monday, did something else. That is their prerogative, of course. I am of the old [...]

    EIGHT MINUTES THAT MATTERED

      It was billed as 90 minutes of history, but everybody thought it was only 8 of those 90 minutes that mattered. The 2012 Alberta election Leader’s Debate, apart from the opening and closing statements and a couple of commercial breaks, was structured to have give-and-take among 4 party leaders on 8 broad subjects in roughly 8 minute blocks. Of [...]

    ONCE UPON A TIME…

      A young, telegenic, ambitious, dynamic leader out of Calgary leads a party full of idealistic and like-minded conservative Albertans, taking on a tired, stale government, set in its ways after 41 years in power. The government’s recent change of Leader has been a disappointment, and too many of the same old people in government occupy all the same old [...]

    THE CIRCUS IS COMING TO TOWN !

      I have it on good authority from impeccable sources that there may be an election called in Alberta, VERY SOON. This also jives with my calculation that it has now been just over 4 years since Ed Stelmach won an election with the lowest voter turnout in Canadian history. Something tells me a few more people may show up [...]

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