A history of automobiles in Edmonton

Edmonton Car History
By Tom Monto

I hope you will enjoy an offering of jottings on the history of automobiles in Edmonton.

George Foote Foss is reported as building the first automobile in Canada in 1896 in Quebec. He made one car—no, not one model—one car. This same year, Henry Ford made his first automobile. It took him two years to recover from the shock, and he made another in 1898. In 1903, he founded the Ford Motor Company and geared up for mass production. However, it was not until 1908 that the first Model T came off the Ford assembly line. To get this simple $825 car going, drivers had to stand in front of it and whip a crank around. A dismantled 1908 Ford came up for auction in 1965 and the Calgary Antique Car Club and Wetaskiwin’s Stan Reynolds both bid hard to get it. The car club was successful in the end. But Reynolds amassed a great collection of other old automobiles, now to be seen at the Alberta-Reynolds Museum in Wetaskiwin.)

Getting back to the history “already in progress”—the Winton automobile factory at Cleveland, Ohio produced 21 cars in its first year of production, 1898. This was the first commercial manufacture of automobiles. In 1899, the company became the largest manufacturer of gas-powered automobiles in the United States by making more than one hundred automobiles.

In 1907, a successful Canadian carriage maker switched to making automobiles. The McLaughlin company, based outside Oshawa, later merged with other companies to become General Motors of Canada.

To my knowledge, there have been no automobiles built in Edmonton, although in the 30s two young Edmonton lads invented an early snowmobile, driven by a large propeller at the back to push it across slippery ice and snow. In 1914, several city folk planned to establish a car factory in Norwood. A Rex Motors Company factory, to be owned by P.S. Oser, Charles J. McMillan and A.A. Howard, was to produce so-called Baby Rex’s. These 16-horsepower vehicles, according to a newspaper advertisement of the projected factory, could develop a speed of 90 km/h and “in ordinary running will do 45 miles on one gallon of gas,” that is about 18 kilometres/litre. The engines would be air-cooled so, as the Bulletin pointed out, there would be nothing to freeze. The $500 car was to be a light 750 pounds (340 kilos) and to be equipped with a self-starter, eliminating the Model T’s crank start. However, despite the virtues of its expected product, the factory apparently never got into gear.

In the early days, three different modes of propulsion were considered: steam, electricity and gasoline.

At least two models of electric cars, cars that ran on battery charges, were produced in Canada. The “Canadian General Electric” was manufactured in 1899 in Peterborough, Ontario, while the next year, the electric “Canadian Motor” went into production. These cars could travel 70 kilometres on their battery charge.

Steam propulsion had a couple things going for it. You could burn whatever was handy… wood, hay, straw, etc. The heat was used to boil water, getting motive power from the incredible expansion exhibited by steam. Also, steam engines did not require transmission, so unlike what many might think nowadays, a Stanley steamer was fast enough to hold the world’s land speed title—until an automobile overtook it in 1911. The Stanley Company produced 200 vehicles in 1898 and 1899, more than any maker of gas-powered automobiles at that time.

The new ways to get around caused concern for many. The noisy vehicles scared horses, flighty enough even before these new irritants. The automobiles’ uncertain mechanics and inexperienced, unlicensed drivers were often a danger to all around them. The Red Deer News asked in 1906 “Is the automobile trying to make the mule look like a safe animal for children to play with?”

However, by 1910, gas-powered automobiles, and their drivers, had gained a better reputation. The “gas-burners” were becoming both cheaper and more reliable, and mechanics had figured a way to install an electric start, getting rid of the dangerous, quirky crank start.

The first automobile to come to Edmonton was gasoline-powered. Jasper Avenue merchant Joe Morris brought a two-cylinder Ford in by train from Winnipeg in 1904. The car was carried by the CPR to Calgary then up the Calgary & Edmonton Railway to the railway town of Strathcona. The Edmonton, Yukon & Pacific Railway could have carried it on to Edmonton, but at that time, that railway stopped just across the river at a little station below McDougall Hill. Apparently Morris figured Strathcona offered better expertise and resources for the lengthy process of fueling and energizing the stubborn mechanical beast. Whyte Avenue confectioner Art Baalim helped Joe Morris unload his car from its railway flatcar and then helped in the two-hour struggle to start it with the hand-crank. Becoming enthusiastic about the world of cars, Baalim later owned a Lethbridge car dealership. When the engine of Morris’s car finally sputtered to life, Morris drove the car down Strathcona Road and across the bridge. The two-cylinder car was so underpowered that it could not push itself up the steep McDougall Hill, emphasizing the need for a “high-level” bridge to connect the two communities. The High Level Bridge was to open 10 years later.

The following day, Morris’s car became the first in Edmonton to run out of gas, when Morris and a friend went for a drive. Morris ingeniously borrowed some benzene (clothes cleaner) from a farmer, and the car stuttered its way home. By the way, the City of Edmonton Archives has a good photo of this car (EA-10-2781), for those interested in paying a visit to this overwhelming resource of information on Edmonton’s history.

Morris’s car stood out in Edmonton’s story, being the only one of its kind in the city for a while and then one of only a few for much longer. When Grace Martin married fellow teacher D.C. McEachern, it was Joe Morris’ car that drove the couple to their wedding. Grace Martin has a school named after her. As well her childhood house (8324 - 106 Street) is a historic site in Old Strathcona.

Morris also got the first license plates in the city, when such things became required, in 1905.

In 1906, there were only 41 cars in the province and only a double-handful in the Twin Cities, as Edmonton and Strathcona were called at the time. Five southsiders had cars: Chester Martin (Grace Martin’s brother), Judge J.G. Tipton, Premier A.C. Rutherford, businessman Harold Ritchie (with licence number “16”) and public official Delmar Bard. Rutherford never learned to drive, and his teenaged children, Cecil and Hazel (later Hazel McCuaig) chauffeured him around. One old-timer recalled that when Mr. Bard was available on Saturday afternoons, he always had a line-up of kids waiting to go for free automobile rides up and down Whyte Avenue.

Harold Ritchie, whose family was the namesake of the Ritchie area, took Whyte Avenue lawyer Charlie Grant for a ride in 1906. They drove through the woodland trails in Riverlot #5, which a few years later became the home of the U of A. Both were immediately sold on the new technology. Grant became prominent in the Edmonton Automobile and Good Road Association and helped found the Alberta Motor Association (today’s AMA).

General stores, so common in those days, sold many of the supplies required by the pioneering motorists. In the city of Strathcona, a gas station was established at the southeast corner of 105 Street and Whyte Avenue (where a large empty lot is now). Its proprietors, Jack Smith and Lorne Scott, apparently had lots of time on their hands—Strathcona’s few car-owners put their cars up on blocks for the winter. This location later saw the start of the Turnbull Motors mini-empire. Harold and his brother William, grandsons of southside pioneer Robert McKernan, opened the Whyte Avenue Service Station there in 1928. The Depression soon came, William went on to other things, but Harold persevered and eventually came to own five automotive repair and retail operations in the Old Strathcona area.

On the northside, Edmonton’s first service station opened on 103 Avenue near 102 Street around 1910. It had one gas pump and also sold gas in square cans, packed in wooden boxes, two to a box. In 1914, Whyte Avenue Repair and Sales at 8108 - 103 Street advertized crank-less starting systems. Those interested could phone 31534 for more information.

But the best place to get your car worked on in those early days was the S’cona Garage, “nothing else larger or better equipped west of Winnipeg” as the Plaindealer described it. It was constructed in 1912 on the southwest corner of 81 Avenue and 105 Street in the building that now houses the Keg at that location. The newspaper said “the first storey, devoted to the needs of ailing automobiles, is probably one of the finest motor hospitals in Canada and certainly the finest in the west. There is storage for 65 automobiles and efficient and experienced engineers minister to their needs.”

Morris’s first car apparently has been lost in the mists of time, but another old vehicle from Edmonton’s past may still be around, in some city storage facility or other, waiting for the much-needed Edmonton Museum to be built. The Journal used to run an “oldest-anything” competition. One of its entries was an unusual 1/2 car-1/2 truck. This amalgam, built by the International Harvester Co. Chicago factory in 1908, came to Edmonton in 1927 as an antique and was owned by the Old-timers Association when it won the oldest-ever award in 1936.

The year that odd vehicle was built, the Twin Cities got its first commercial vehicle. The Bulletin reported that the Cloverdale meatpacking firm of Gallagher and Hull purchased “an express automobile for delivery of their goods in the city. This is the first machine of is kind in use for business purposes in Edmonton.”

Government was not far behind the meatpackers in jumping on the automobile —er—bandwagon.

In 1913, school superintendent James McCaig asked for a car for himself and one for his building commissioner. The schoolboard decided to give McCaig a car but offered his building commissioner $25 to cover his horse-and-buggy expenses. City roads were bad and the mechanical contrivance was often undependable, so it could be that McCaig got the worse of the deal.

The city police too received their first car in 1913, but police chief Silas Carpenter said that that was not enough to counter the growing problem of wide-open gambling, drinking and activities of “ladies of the night.” A reform mayor was elected, he fired Carpenter and re-hired former chief A.C. Lancey to the job. Many public-spirited citizens called for a general clean-up, but there was a powerful group that wanted to turn Edmonton into a wide-open city, modeled, it was said, on the Klondike of the gold-rush days. Prominent in the group, according to rumour, was alderman Joe Clarke, who had formerly lived in Dawson City. The city council chambers were stormy that year, and careers were short—police chief Lancey, hired in January, was only chief until June, McNamara was only mayor until October. But cars had little to do with that…

Edmonton’s pre-WW I boom brought personal wealth to many as well as public scandal to some. Delmar Bard, former Indian agent at Rivière Qui Barre, made a small fortune from real estate during the boom. In 1912, he built a huge house at 10544 - 84 Avenue, where it can still be seen today. The stone-detailed brick house features a two-storey carriage house. The carriage house contained a turntable so that Bard’s car could be turned around, eliminating the need to drive backwards into the street. The car was handy for Bard’s work as Inspector of Roads and Bridges for the Alberta Government.

1912 saw one of Edmonton’s first automobile traffic accidents. A car owned by J.J. McKenzie collided with a horse-drawn cart on Whyte Avenue. McKenzie was one of the area’s early pioneers. He had settled in the Edmonton area in 1886, finding work as ferryman for John Walter. When the Calgary & Edmonton Railway arrived on the south bank of the river in 1891, McKenzie took up blacksmithing and opened a farm implement dealership and later a car dealership. One of McKenzie’s demonstrators, as car salesmen were called at the time, was taking a Tudhope Six, which had just arrived on the train, for a trial spin. The car, going west on Whyte Avenue, was met by a one-horse rig coming east on the left side of the road. According to the Strathcona Plaindealer, the salesman “crowded the curb, expecting to pass without trouble but finding he could not, took the car off the road, attempting to apply the brakes without success. The car dashed through two vacant lots and crashed through a solid fence. This obstacle, combined with the grip of the brakes, stopped the six-cylinder Everitt. The horse and vehicle were thrown over on the pavement so narrow was the escape, but no other damage resulted. Driving on the wrong side of the road was a fault of the boy teamster, which nearly cost him his life.”

Rules gradually were formulated to lessen the frequency of incidents of this nature. As well, teamsters, used to letting their horses “free rein” to find the way home, learned to keep a lookout for the new speedy means of travel. Edmonton’s first traffic light was not installed until 1933, at the intersection of Jasper Avenue and 101st Street. Before this, police constables sporting British-style “bobby” hats did traffic duty at busy intersections.

For a short time, Edmonton had a “cycle-car,” This four-wheeled vehicle was powered by an air-cooled motorcycle engine. It was owned by John Michaels, in charge of street sales and newsstands for the Edmonton Journal. He bought the car in 1914, just two years after his arrival from New York. “Mike” was rushing copies of the Journal to the exhibition grounds on Canada Day 1915, when he totalled the car. He sold the wrecked vehicle on the spot for $100. The following year he opened Mike’s Newsstand on Jasper Avenue near 100A Street. This business became one of the largest newspaper and magazine distributors in Canada.

Some of those early cars were amazingly well built. Edmontonian William Rae bought a new Studebacker touring car in 1918. He kept it until 1950 when he sold it to another Edmontonian. In that time it had had no major mechanical work done on it. But Rae had put only 43,000 miles on its odometer. His longest trip with the car was a jaunt to Cooking Lake.

Others were much harder on their vehicles. A car was driven from Edmonton to Calgary for the first time in 1906. Calgarian H.W. White, having bought a car in Edmonton, left the city on the morning of March 2. At this cold time of the year, he did not need to contend with mud, so made amazingly fast time, arriving in Calgary on the evening of March 3. The length of the journey is demonstrated by the fact it was timed using a calendar. Conditions of the road and the vehicles would soon improve so that within a few years, people were able to use a watch to measure a trip between Alberta’s two main cities.

In 1908, U.S. car pioneers took on a larger task, to drive from New York to San Francisco. Last year Edmonton’s car enthusiast par excellence Ray Fowler drove a 1930 Chevrolet Speedster in the 100th anniversary re-enactment of this historic race. He proudly pointed out that his was the only antique car that made the whole distance unaided by tow or carry.

A shorter, but still memorable, distance was covered by T. Douglas, proprietor of the Queen’s and Brunswick Hotels, in 1913. He drove from Edmonton to Calgary in 10.5 hours, beating White’s 1906 time by, oh, say, 24 hours.

A few years later, city council approved a bylaw to widen 109 Street, leading to its use as the main road south to Calgary. The provincial highway, although still poorly signposted and muddy, was improving year by year. The improvements were such that Douglas’s time for a one-way trip was beat by a motorist going both ways.

Paul Welch, of McLaughlin Motors, set a record in 1922 by driving to Calgary and back in less than 10 hours. Welch started his record-breaking trip at the corner of 109 Street (Calgary Trail) and Whyte Avenue. He drove a McLaughlin-Buick Master Four automobile from that intersection to Calgary and back, a distance of 665 kilometres in 9 hours and 26 minutes, beating the usual time of four days (and three sleeps) on the way. Poor road conditions and vehicle problems held him up. His McLaughlin-Buick boasted fancy new shock absorbers. However, the “state-of-the-art” devices fell off during the rough trip. When pushed for an endorsement from the manufacturer, he wrote diplomatically that he would not think of starting a trip without them. Although Welch showed it could be done, it was not expected that many others could equal his time under the conditions of the time. You see Welch was an early Evil Knieval. A year after his epic trip to Calgary he set a world record with his car, by driving up an incline and through the air, jumping 22.3 metres (73 feet, two inches) before touching ground again.

But most people used their cars for more …um…down to earth purposes. Trains were rejected, as people turned to cars as the way for families to set their own pace and go their own way. Many families on the road wanted places to camp to avoid the cost of hotels. Neither motels, nor motor hotels, are to be found in the Edmonton city directory even into the 1930s. In 1925, the city saw fit to accommodate the demand for camping facilities for those travelling by “auto-car” who did not wish to stay at hotels. The Edmonton Auto Camp was located on 72 Avenue east of 105A Street, near both Calgary Trail and the Southside Athletic Grounds, the site of today’s Strathcona Composite High School.

So, what had started as outlandish machines driven by the rich and famous, or in Premier’s Rutherford’s case. by his teenaged children, had become part of established life. Now families out camping used the cars, businesses used trucks to carry produce as a matter of course, police and fire departments had put their horses “out to pasture.” Aside from the occasional farmer’s wagon, the only time a city resident heard a horse was every morning…whoa what? Yes, every morning until 1961, horse-drawn milk wagons still made their Edmonton rounds, delivering milk and other delicious dairy products to sleeping houses. Children were always amazed at how the horses stopped and started without the driver needing to signal them. Sometimes it seemed they knew the route better than the delivery-men! And that is something no simple automobile can do.

If anyone knows of any interesting garages, please pass their whereabouts on to me for an upcoming article on those little-considered structures. Thanks and best wishes for the coming year.

Tom Monto

montotom@yahoo.ca

c/o Alhambra Books,

10115 - 81 Avenue, Edmonton, T6E 1W9

(Information for this article was taken from my book, Old Strathcona Before the Great Depression, Edmonton Portrait of a City by Dennis Person and Carin Routledge, and various newsclippings collected and preserved at the City of Edmonton Archives, in the “Firsts” file, “Antique Cars”; “Transportation Automobiles”; “Meat market, Meatpacking” folders, including the following:

Edmonton Bulletin. Aug. 8, 1908; June 29, 1914;

Edmonton Journal, June 30, 1936; June 29, 1914; Ap. 17, 1934; July 21, 1951.)