Other Names:
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Okotoks Art Gallery at the Station
Okotoks Train Station
Station Cultural Centre
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Statement of Significance
Description of Historic Place
The 1929 CPR Station is an elongated rectangular, one- and two-storey, wood-frame building clad in brick with vertical wood details, a medium-pitched double gable and medium-pitched hip roofline with front and rear double gables and large decorative triangular wood curved brackets. The CPR Station is set on a large soft landscaped site with a deep setback from the street. The building fronts along the North Railway Street (formerly Macleod Trail), and across from the historic Okotoks Post Office and Beattie General Store. The CPR Station fronts the railway tracks to the south and is situated in the Okotoks community of Heritage Okotoks, just east of the downtown and north of the Sheep River.
Heritage Value
Constructed in 1929, by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), the CPR Station is valued for its continuous association with the role that railway transportation provided in the early establishment and continued growth of the town and surrounding rural area in the early 20th century.
The CPR transcontinental line reached the Macleod Trail at Calgary in 1883 and completed construction in 1885. Construction began on the Calgary-Fort Macleod branch in August 1891 and worked southward until it reached Fort Macleod in September 1892. In 1892, the town became a new form of transportation hub along the railway line when a small wood-constructed CPR Plan X-39 train station was built in Okotoks at 53 North Railway Street. The first station agent was Mr. E. Armitage. The new railway created economic opportunities for the town, transforming it from a stopover along the Macleod Trail to the incorporated village of Dewdney by 1893. The town developed around the station, located in section 28 and in 1893, Alexander McRae and John Lineham, who were the respective owners of the east and west halves of section 28, subdivided the land around the station as Plan 1650E Okotoks.
The CPR Station would play a key “transportation hub” role for its function to establish, produce and grow primary resource and agricultural development in the area. Railway service assured Okotoks’ role as a hub for grain storage, and at one time elevators were a significant defining characteristic of the landscape symbolizing the area’s agricultural roots. In 1958, a seed-cleaning plant and four grain elevators were situated along the railway. Being the nearest railway hub, the station was also central to the movement of both oil exploration equipment and the oil that was produced in the surrounding area. The Okotoks CPR Station was significant during the 1914 Turner Valley oilfield boom as all supplies and people first came to Okotoks on their way to Turner Valley with the oil production brought back to Okotoks to be shipped.
The 1892 CPR Station was lost to fire in 1928. In 1929, at the cost of $19,871, a new one- and two-storey brick station was constructed to continue its role of moving goods and passengers. Similar to the 1892 station, agents and their families lived upstairs while the business of the railway provided such services as a telegraph office, mail service and ticket office for passengers. The last passenger train stopped in Okotoks on July 2, 1971 with the station closing one year later. After which time it sat vacant until it was purchased by the Town in 1980 and was re-opened in 1981 to the community as a cultural arts facility.
The Okotoks CPR Station possesses value as a well-kept representation of a variation of the CPR Standard 14A design built between 1924-1930 in Alberta. The one- and two-storey brick building exemplifies architectural elements that were typical of railway stations to reinforce the function, a picturesque sense of arrival, and economic settlement opportunities in the town. The CPR Station is an elongated, rectangular wood-constructed, brick clad building. The distinctive roof is a combination of a medium-pitched gable and hip roof supported by large decorative wood curved brackets and projecting stone shelves. Decorative brick courses at the base of the building, square inlaid brick design between the upper front and rear double gables, and vertical wood fenestration overlaid on the dormer brick wall enhanced the building design. A garden to the east of the station promoted the sale of land for its fertility and products that could be grown in the area.
Constructed in 1929 to replace the original 1892 station, the CPR Station represents the continued value of the railway function to the town’s urban development during the Inter-war period. Rebuilding the train station with a more substantial brick building represented the value of the station to the continued growth and development of Okotoks. It remains as a recognized and prominent local symbol in the established downtown core of Okotoks.
Character-Defining Elements
Character-defining elements of the CPR Station include, but are not limited to:
- Form, scale and massing as expressed by its elongated rectangular east to west, one- and two-storey, rectangular plan aligning with the railway tracks; internal two-storey layout on the eastern half and one-storey layout on the western half; projecting enclosed window bay on the north elevation and open covered platform on the south elevation;
- medium-pitch double gable roofline on the two-storey portion and medium-pitch hip roofline on the one-storey, front and rear double gables; moulded projecting stone shelves supporting decorative wooden triangular curved brackets adjacent to building corners and doors; projecting eaves with plain wooden fascia boards; and internal chimney;
- wood-frame construction with brick cladding and decorative vertical wood trim on the dormer wall; a horizontal decorative brick course along the base of the building; decorative brick course designed as a rectangular box between the front and rear upper floor gables and around all the windows; concrete foundation;
- original fenestration pattern on all facades; tall vertical single and double-assembly windows on the main and upper levels; decorative flat brick lintel and sides with projecting decorated brick lug sills;
- functional CPR style and design elements including a projecting bay of exterior windows on the railway line south elevation resulting in a internal detailed wood finished counter space;
- other exterior features such as a wood platform on the north elevation with staircases; and
- original placement and orientation on the property; setbacks on all sides with soft landscaping on the north and east sides; - location fronting North Railway Street; set back on the property with a soft landscape public space that interfaces with an urban commercial streetscape to the north and the railway line and prairie landscape to the south; setting near the Sheep River; and - relation to other historic buildings like the adjacent relocated Welch House (49 North Railway Street), and the Okotoks Post Office (52 North Railway Street) and Beattie General Store (64 North Railway Street) across the street.
Location