Key Number:	HS 24969
Site Name:	North-West Mounted Police Barracks
Other Names:
Site Type:	1402 - Military: Barracks

Location

ATS Legal Description:

			Twp	Rge	Mer
			24	10	5

Address:	609 - 8 Street
Number:	9
Street:	8
Avenue:	6
Other:
Town:	Canmore
Near Town:

Media

Type	Number	Date	View	Source

Architectural

Style:
Plan Shape:	Rectangular
Storeys:	Storeys: 1
Foundation:
Superstructure:
Superstructure Cover:
Roof Structure:	Medium Gable
Roof Cover:
Exterior Codes:	Roof Trim - Eaves: Projecting Eaves Chimney Stack Material: Brick Main Porch - Type: Open Verandah
Exterior:	Foundation: none except for small cellar under kitchen. Structure: Round logs, dovetail notches. Covering: chinking of mud and straw with a later plaster application; this mixture has built up to a veneer n corners and some portions of walls. Projecting eaves, fascia only, front open verandah, rear shed roofed addition, shed projection on east elevation of nailed wood frame with bevel siding, brick chimney.
Interior:	Formerly had a jail (northwest corner), pantry (centre westend), office (centre northend), two bedrooms (east end), bridge room with chimney and trap door to cellar (south end).
Environment:	Town lot adjacent Policemans Creek.
Condition:	Good. 14 JUN 1982.
Alterations:	N/A

Historical

Construction:	Construction Date:
Constructed.	1893/01/01
Usage:	Usage Date:
Residence. N.W.M.P. Post	1893/01/01
Owner:	Owner Date:
N/A

Architect:	N/A
Builder:	N/A
Craftsman:	N/A
History:	First NWMP AT Canmore was constable Harris in 1888. Formerly Canmore was under Banff's Jurisdiction. N.W.M.P. rented quarters until they built this post themselves from trees in the area in 1893. A stable was contructed in that year as well but was demolished circa 1943. Greatest strength was in 1893 with two men and two horses posted in Canmore. By 1896 only one man was posted here and except for the winter of 1899, when there were two men once again, there remained one man only until 1928 or 1929 when the mounties vacated this post. Mr. Black moved in circa 1928 or 1929 until ? used as residence. Mrs. Mabel Jemieff moved in ? and is present owner. Police rented quarters in Mineside after 1929 until new office erected on 1A HWY. Policeman's Creek is named after the N.W.M.P. Post on its shores. It was formerly called Carey Creek after Charles Carey a C.P.R. engineer. * * * Building/Site Description: The former North West Mounted Police Post is a one storey log building constructed in 1893 that is currently used as a residence. It is built of round logs using dovetailed joints. The clinking is of mud and straw with a later application of plaster. No other historical buildings occupy the site since the stable was demolished in 1943. The fact that no major additions have been made to the buidings has preserved its exterior integrity. The interior has been modified for use as a residence, but these modifications have been carried out without reorganizing the space, thus maintaing a measure of the building's interior integrity. The building is located on a main street in the Town of Canmore immediately east of the Ralph Connor United Church. The landscaping of the site, which consists of a lawn and some shrubbery planted close to the house, reflects the curuent use of the building as a residence. The site is surrounded by a picket fence. Historical Significance: North West Mounted Police officers were first stationed at Canmore on a permanent basis in 1888. Initially the detachment rented quarters from a number of settlers in the town. In 1882, however, eight lots in the Canmore townsite were set asided for police use. The necessary logs for the construction of a barrack building and stable were gathered in the same year. The buildings were completed and occupied by 1893. In 1908-09 the barracks was dismantled and reconstruted. The Canmore detachment which occupied the buildings until 1928 or 1929 consistently comprised only one or two constables reporting to 'E' Division Headquarters in Calgary. Duties of the detachment included patrols, checking trains for illegal liquor and maintaining law and order during strikes. The Town of Canmore was originally established by the Canadian Pacific Railway as the first divisional point west of Calgary, and gained importance with the development coal mining. In 1884, William McCardell and Frank McCabe uncovered a seam where a mine could be established in 1887. The coal was scowed across the river during the summer months and transported by sleigh and wagon during the winter months to the CPR siding. In 1892 H.W. NcNeil and Co. took over control of Mine No.1 at Canmore which continued to operated under the name 'Anthracite Coal Co.' The Canmore Coal Company took over the mine in 1911 and continued to operate it until the 1970s. The maintenance of order during the various strikes which occured in Canmore, inluding a notable one in 1911, constituted an occasional responsibility of the local RCMP detachment. Architectural Significance: Few details are available conserning the construction of this building with respect to who built it and if any plan was followed. An examination of the building itself would suggest that it was built using materials and construction techniques common throughout many areas of North America. These common North American technique evolved quickly from the contributions of a number of settlers from such countries as Sweden where log buildings date as far back as 800 AD. These construction methods were picked up by incoming settlers and tradesmen who used them irrespective of their own cultured background. As C.A. Weslager in his book The Log Cabin in America observes 'the defferent methods of corner matching characteristic of the American Log Cabin... were used contemporaneously in the post - pioneer American Settlements depending upon the skill, the whims, the available tools and materials and the previous experience of the builder.' * * * Alberta News Release June 4, 1990 Canmore NWMP Barracks Designated a Historic Resource The Honourable Doug Main, Minister of Culture and Multiculturalism, has designated the North West Mounted Police Barracks in Canmore a Provincial Historic Resource. North West Mounted Police officers were first permanently stationed in Canmore in 1888. The detachment initially rented quarters from townspeople, but in 1892 eight townsite lots were set aside for police use. The buildings were completed and occupied by 1893. In 1908-09 the barracks were dismantled and reconstructed. The Canmore detachment which occupied the buildings until around 1928 consisted of one or two constables reporting to 'E' Division in Calgary. One of the oldest Mounted Police structures in the province, the barracks have long associations with Canmore's railroad and coal-mining past. * * * A New Life for the Old Barracks An important piece of Canmore's past is to be given a new life. After forty years as a private home, the original North West Mounted Police Barracks which has been standing on the west bank of Policeman's Creek in Canmore since 1892 has been designated a Provincial Historic Site by Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism. The mud-chinked, log structure and the property on which it stands, were acquired by the Town of Canmore last year and has been placed in the care of the Centennial Museum Society of Canmore. ... In 1892 Canmore was a divisional point on the recently completed Canadian Pacific Railway and a fledging mining community with a population of around 500 people, the majority of whom were single men employed by the railroad and in the mines. Established just nine years before, when the track crews reached here, the town was little more than a collection of buildings north of the river by the tracks. On the lower slopes of mountains south of the river the first mining facilities were coming into production. It was in this year that the North West Mounted Police established their first Barracks in the town, a milestone in Canmore's history. When the town was first established, it was not considered worthy of a detachment of its own. It was first policed from Calgary and then from Banff. In 1888 Macleod Stewart, President of the Canadian Anthracite Coal Company wrote to Lieutenant Colonel Fred White, the Comptroller of the N.W.M.P. in Ottawa petitioning for more police to control what he considered to be a worsening liquor situation which was causing outbursts of rowdyism among the miners in Canmore and Anthracite ten miles to the west. The official response was to station one constable in Canmore. Constable Harris, the town's first polisman set up shop in rented quarters on land belonging to J.D. Anderson and Vincent Towers. By 1890 two men and a commissioned officer were stationed here. In 1892 a plot of land on the west bank of what was then known as Carey Creek was selected as the site for a permanent home for the Canmore detachment of the N.W.M.P. Two local men with a team of horses got to work constructing first a stable then the barracks itself from logs obtained in the area. When they were finished, two policemen and two hourses were moved into the new quarters. Canmore was changing. As more families settled in the town and it became more of a community, the need for a strong police presence to control a potentially volatile situation diminished. By 1896 the strength of the Canmore detachment had been reduced to one man and one horse. Except for the winter of 1899, when there were two men stationed here, the strength remained at one until 1929 when what were now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police moved to new quarters across the river in Mineside. The barracks and stable were rebuilt in 1909 on the site by the creek which has been renamed Policeman's Creek. When the detachment vacated the old barracks in 1928 the building sat empty until 1930 when it was rented to a local man to whom the property was later sold. Though the stable was demolished in 1943, the old mud-chinked, log structure stands by the creek today at the east end of Main Street, a reminder of Canmore's heritage.

Internal

Designation Status:	Designation Date:
Provincial Historic Resource	1990/09/05

Register:

Links

Internet:
Alberta Register of Historic Places:	4665-0378