‘Like an old home to me’: Calgarians reflect on the history of Firehall No. 1

The building, with its red brick exterior with sandstone and iconic five-bay doors, still sits there today, familiarly taking up its spot on the corner of 1st St. and 6th Ave. SE.

Calgary Firehall No. 1 has been in the same location since it opened its bay doors in 1911, the two-storey building sitting on six lots against the backdrop of downtown buildings, including the Bow Tower.

James "Cappy" Smart was the city’s first full-time fire chief, his name a familiar one amongst those who know their Calgary fire department history.

Cappy was a colourful fixture with a storied past, known for his penchant for animals, such as a monkey that now haunts the halls of the Hose and Hound, and a pet bear, among others.

He helped spearhead the design of Firehall No. 1 and led his team from the headquarters until his retirement in 1933. The building itself remained a firehall until 1973.

But let’s start at the beginning

Before Firehall No. 1 became the city’s firefighter headquarters, there was already one located on 7th Ave. downtown where the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 1 now resides, says Calgary Heritage CEO and historian Josh Traptow.

The original opened in 1887. The two-storey wood building with its three bay doors was built for horses and wagons and looked more like a church at the time, explains Traptow.

“And Cappy Smart, who was the fire chief at the time, his house was to the left of the firehall,” Traptow says, adding the building was demolished in 1911.

That’s when the iconic Firehall No. 1 came to life, serving as both the headquarters and a training facility for years to come.

What about those iconic bay doors?

Some Calgarians might wonder why the firehall was built diagonally across the intersection, and there’s a useful explanation for that.

“The reason it was built diagonally on the avenue was so that they could go any route out of the firehall,” Traptow explains.

“If they need to go east or west on the avenue or north or south on the street, that diagonal situation of the firehall allowed them to get wherever they needed to go.”

While the former Firehall No. 1 was built for wagons and horses, the one that replaced it was the first designed specifically for motorized fire trucks and its massive bay doors reflect that.

At the time, the fire department was transforming from a primarily volunteer driven brigade to a trained and paid profession.

Reflecting on memories

Retired Calgary Fire Department district chief Jack Henderson started his career in the early 1950s, ultimately working his way through the ranks before retiring in February 1987.

Henderson’s memories of Firehall No. 1 haven’t faded over the years and he reflects fondly on his time working at the iconic firehall.

The 90-year-old now volunteers with the Firefighters Museum of Calgary and enjoys sharing his nostalgic experiences with Calgarians every chance he gets.

“It was like an old home to me,” Henderson says, adding he is the last man standing from that time.

“There is nobody left from the department that I worked with.”

A peek inside—and out

Henderson says not many people know that there is a hand-painted mural covering two walls in the basement of the building, painted by an artistic firefighter, sometime in the 1930s.

“A mural of downtown Calgary. It’s one of Calgary’s best-known secrets because they don't advertise the fact that [it’s] there because it’s so fragile,” Henderson says.

“It is painted on a rock wall that cannot be moved. When we had the flood in 2013, the room was flooded right to the ceiling. When the floods receded, that mural was undamaged.”

Not only did the firehall have advanced interior features for the times, it also had outdoor attractions, such as the decorative elephant fountain made of concrete.

The fountain was built in 1925 by firefighter James Yeates and was a permanent fixture until it was relocated in 1971 to Station 17 near the University of Calgary.

Sadly, in 1981, one of the elephants, created by Frank Markle, was stolen and never recovered.

“We don’t know how to restore it, or how to replace the stolen elephant,” Henderson says.

Lifetime of memories

Colleen Jackson was just a young child when her father became a firefighter in 1952, starting at Firehall No. 1, but she remembers the elephant fountain fondly.

“A lot of times I would be with my mother. I was just a toddler,” Jackson says, adding they would often walk from their Forest Lawn home, then its own town, to Firehall No. 1.

“And then we would patter around outside and what I remember most is the fountain on the south side, and it had elephants on the top of the fountain. That's what I remember about those journeys to the firehall.”

Jackson’s father retired in 1986 and died in 2020, just 12 days shy of his 90th birthday. He was lifelong friends with Henderson, who Jackson has kept in close contact with.

“Most firefighters when they retired—the ones that started when he did—most of them passed away within a year of them retiring,” Jackson says, adding her dad lived a long, full life despite working as a firefighter for so many years.

“My dad was at many firehalls, so many memories.”

An iconic legacy

Architecturally, the firehall embodied many state-of-the-art features such as its square 50-foot hose tower and its highly identifiable façade, and the building has always been a well-known city landmark.

Additional spaces such as offices, bedrooms, and a recreation room enhanced the facility for firefighters who also lived there, ready to rush out of the hall for a call at any time.

Traptow points to the firehall’s classic look, which became a sort of blueprint for other firehalls.

“It looks very similar to the fire station on MacLeod trail across from Stampede Park, which is now an EMS station,” Traptow says.

The architect who built it was George MacDonald Lang. His projects also included Firehall No. 2, Firehall No. 3, and the 1913 police headquarters, which no longer exists.

“He was a well-known architect and did a number of major commissions for the city. I think at the time, it was probably a state-of-the-art firehall. And I think that's why they replicated it a lot,” Traptow says.

Traptow says schools would often follow a similar pattern.

“Instead of reinventing the wheel when it came to plans and architecture, you already had a set of plans that do what you needed to do. And so it was easier to just rinse and repeat, rather than designing something totally different.”

The last chapter

While the iconic building hasn’t been used as a firehall since 1973, it became a Budget rental car hub in 1989 for more than 30 years until its closure in 2019.

“For the most part the building has stayed intact,” Traptow says, adding the building served as one of the longest-running firehalls in the city’s history.

Traptow says the city’s population boom caused the firehall to outgrow its space.

“I suspect the biggest thing was probably because the trucks got bigger and they could no longer get them into the bay doors,” he adds.

When Budget shuttered its doors, the city put out a call looking for a new tenant for the heritage building.

“It’s legally protected. It can’t be demolished, it can’t be significantly altered. And so the city continues to own it. And they’re excellent stewards when it comes to heritage buildings,” Traptow says, adding the city designated it as a historic resource in 2007, and the province did the same in 2009.

What’s happening today

Most recently, the Good Neighbour group next door repurposed the courtyard space for community markets and movies. The site has also been used for several film productions over the last two to three years.

The city is in the process of exploring possible future uses of the firehall, including a combination of commercial and arts and cultural uses, officials told Calgary Citizen.

“We are currently investigating whether a private or non-profit partner might be interested in revitalizing this historic downtown location,” they said in an emailed statement.

“Firehall No. 1 is a key heritage resource in our downtown and as part of Calgary’s Greater Downtown Plan, the future use of this site will support improving our downtown vibrancy.”

In 2023, officials are exploring options to utilize the courtyard for other planned community events.

We recommend checking out the Firefighters Museum Calgary for more information, including a large selection of historic photos.