Historic Ranch Houses of Calgary
June 16, 2025
“Group preparing for tennis on William Roper Hull ranch, Fish Creek, Midnapore, Alerta” ca/ 1896-1899. Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.
Calgary’s history is deeply associated with the ranching industry in Alberta. Alberta raises more than half of Canada’s beef supply, and Calgary is known for its close association with the Calgary Stampede and Canada’s cowboy country.
After the arrival of the North-West Mounted Police, cattle ranchers began to move into the prairies. Since the North-West Mounted Police had close links to the ranch owners, many recruits went on to become ranchers themselves after leaving the force.
The government began to promote the development of large ranches during the 1870s and early 1880s. Publicity surrounding Canadian ranching potential attracted settlers from Britain, generally from the landed classes with sufficient capital to establish their own ranches. Access to distant markets was assured when the Canadian Pacific Railway reached the prairies in the early 1880s, and interest in ranching grew dramatically.
To this day, historic ranches dot the rolling plains of southern Alberta, but did you know that several historic ranch houses remain within the city limits? This article explores Calgary ranch houses that have been included on our Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources.
Bow Valley Ranch House, Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources, Heritage Calgary.
Every day, hundreds of people walk past the Bow Valley Ranch House in Fish Creek Provincial Park. This ranch house stands on the site of the first European homestead in the Calgary area, established by Irish immigrant John Glenn and his Metis wife Adelaide.
Their homestead was sold to William Roper Hull and then eventually purchased by Pat Burns, one of Calgary’s “Big Four” cattlemen, in 1902.
Pat Burns was born in Ontario and came to Alberta in 1890. A prominent figure in Calgary and the cattle industry, by 1912 Pat Burns owned six huge ranches and was involved in railroads, oil, meatpacking, and politics. He was the city’s first millionaire, known as the “Cattle King” of the northwest, and built the largest integrated meat business in Canada. Learn more about Pat Burns on the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Christie Ranch House, Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources, Heritage Calgary.
The Christie Ranch House’s builder, Quebec-born James Christie (ca1829-1894), settled in Alberta in 1875. He sold horses to the NWMP which he drove north from Montana into the Pincher Creek-Fort Macleod area, where his brother Andrew later settled.
James became a partner in the Stewart Ranche established by Major John Stewart and John Heron in 1881. In 1889 he left that enterprise to settle on three quarter sections in Section 31 in Beddington, 10 miles northwest of Calgary, choosing an ideal site for his ranch house sheltered in the Symons Valley, next to West Nose Creek and the trail to Madden, Alberta, the Symons Valley Trail.
The bachelor built a sandstone house for himself; he and his brother were reported to be stone masons. The interior was not yet finished when James died from injuries sustained in an accident in 1894.
The Christie Ranch House is symbolic of the pioneer ranch families who settled the Symons Valley part of the Beddington district and contributed to its local community.
The extended Beaton family helped to organize the Wheat Pool, the United Milk and Cream Producers Association and the local arm of the United Farmers of Alberta. Mabel served as the President of the United Farm Women of Alberta. The large family ranch house was used as a community dance hall.
Hone Ranch House, Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources, Heritage Calgary.
As a ranch house built by early 20th Century farmers in today’s Southwood, the residence is symbolic of the community’s pioneer roots as former ranch lands.
It was first homesteaded from 1885 by John Lun Durie who came west from Ontario, his wife and children joining him in 1887. The Hone Ranch House possesses activity value for its associations with family ranching operations from 1885 to 1962.
The modest family farm grew substantially before Durie turned to another livelihood, auctioning his livestock and equipment, and selling the farm in 1893 to Margaret Pearce, the wife of well-known city-builder William Pearce. During her ownership it was farmed by the Andrew Nelson family until 1905.
Jackson Ranch House, Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources, Heritage Calgary.
The Jackson Ranch House is located on a former ranch land settled since ca. 1891, operated until the 1930s, and possesses activity value for its associations with the Calgary area’s early ranching history.
Thomas Edgar Jackson ran extensive ranching and dairy operations on an area near today’s Shaganappi Golf Course that became known as Jackson’s Ridge. He likely built this house after he purchased the property in 1906 and shared it with his wife Mary/Molly and children (he had 10 from two marriages).
Thomas’ sons continued to work some of the land after his death in 1929. Family members remained in the home until 1937, when all combined Jackson family holdings had to be sold for financial reasons. The Jackson Ranch House is the only remaining ranch house in the surrounding area.
The Jackson Ranch House is symbolic of the pioneer families of the Calgary area who contributed to its economic and community development.
In addition to their agricultural activities, Thomas E. and Charles Jackson operated a sandstone quarry at the base of the coulee on Shaganappi Hill, supplying many early construction projects. Thomas also owned and operated a ranch on the Elbow River near the Twin Bridges, later known as the Rocky Mountain Polo Pony Ranch.
McPherson Ranch House, Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources, Heritage Calgary.
The McPherson Ranch House, located on former McPherson family ranch lands and operated by the family for nearly a century, possesses activity value for its associations with ranching.
The lands were first homesteaded by Joseph McPherson (1833-1913) and his wife Jane (nee McIntosh, ca1835-1909) who emigrated in 1856 from Aberdeen, Scotland, first settling at Carluke, Ontario. Encouraged by their friend (well-known Calgary pioneer Colonel James Walker, also from Carluke), the family moved to Calgary in 1883 and in 1884 began raising crops in the Spruce Vale area, which was then six miles southwest of town.
Once a well-known reference in a rural landscape, the ranch house now serves as a different type of landmark, one that stands out from the surrounding 1990s neighbourhood by virtue of its red-brick cladding, Edwardian style and expansive grounds which recall the community’s roots as former ranch lands.
Nimmons Residence, Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources, Heritage Calgary.
The Nimmons Residence possesses symbolic value for its associations with Calgary's golden age of ranching (c1886-1906), an activity which was vital to the city's settlement.
The 3-D Bar Ranch was established near Calgary in the mid 1880s when Isabella and William Nimmons purchased a half-section of land from the Hudson's Bay Company. The price of $8 per acre was very high for the time, but the land's proximity to Calgary markets was advantageous for ranching, lifestyle and real estate.
The ranch extended from 17th Avenue to 26th Avenue, and from 14th Street to near Crowchild Trail. The ranch house permitted views of their herd of Shorthorns grazing near present day 17th Avenue, and of the Jackson and Riley ranch houses.
The Nimmons Residence holds symbolic meaning for the Bankview and Richmond/Knob Hill neighbourhoods as the first house in the area and because the lands - surveyed for William in 1905 and annexed in 1907 - eventually became Bankview and part of Richmond/Knob Hill.
Ricardo Ranch, Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources, Heritage Calgary.
Ricardo Ranch, established in 1886, is highly valued as an early intact farming complex with its roots in Calgary’s rich ranching history.
Established by William Crawley Ricardo (1864-1946) as ranchlands through a series of homestead grants beginning with SE-10-22-29-W5 and adding on several interconnected quarter sections. The quarter sections were purchased as part of Homestead Grants and also land that became available from the CPR beginning in 1886 through the early 1890s.
Ricardo, a Cambridge educated native of Minchinhampton, England, immigrated to Canada in 1885 to develop farming and ranching in the newly opened prairies. With his partners Herbert Walter Bevan and Howell Richard Jones Williams, they imported shires, establishing Ricardo & Co. by circa 1888; the horses were sold locally. Ricardo built the first home on the property in 1887 as well as a gabled barn which is still located on the property.
The property was later purchased by Patrick Burns (mentioned earlier in this article) in 1906. Ricardo Ranch was the third ranch he purchased and was selected due to its proximity to the packing plant in Calgary and the property’s several miles of river frontage. While Burns did not ever live at the Ranch, he visited often and had a superb knowledge of cattle, soil, and grazing needs. In 1918, he had a new Edwardian Foursquare home built for his ranch hands on a location picked by his nephew, John Burns. Apart from a short change of ownership from 1925-1929, the Burns empire owned the property until 1948. R
Ricardo Ranch is also valued for its association to long-time owners, Prince Constantin Soutzo (1912-2004) and his wife, Ioana (nee Perticari, ca. 1908-2004) of Romania, who fled their native home after Russian Communists seized over 3,237 hectares (8000 acres) of their land. With their son, two step-daughters and mother, Princess Elizabeth Soutzo, they escaped Romania and moved to Calgary to purchase farmland, buying Ricardo Ranch for their family home in 1948. They had 500 head of cattle by 1968. The family owned the property for several generations and started selling off parcels to a developer in 2015.
Riley Lodge, Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources, Heritage Calgary.
Riley Lodge, built in 1911, has significance as a legacy of the Riley family, early city-builders important in the development of northwest Calgary. Thomas Riley emigrated from England in 1862, first settling in eastern Canada where he married Georgiana Hounsfield. In 1887 the couple and their 10 children moved to Calgary and within a year were homesteading a quarter-section on Morley Trail just north of town limits.
As the last surviving ranch house of a notable pioneer ranch family, Riley Lodge is also valued as a symbol of the development of ranching in northwest Calgary from 1888, associated with the Riley family operations.
Alfred Riley (1872-1933), who would eventually build Riley Lodge, was 16 when he began working on his parents’ homestead. In 1902-3 he purchased section 31 (on Morley Trail near Cochrane, AB) with his mother Georgiana from the CPR for ranching, and in 1909, when Thomas’ daughters inherited the original homestead, they leased this land to Alfred to operate as well.
In 1911, ready to erect his ranch house, Alfred acquired a building permit on his sister’s property at 7 Avenue and 24 Street NW. Riley Lodge was built for $6000. Alfred later acquired title to the property after Harriet’s death in 1922.
In 1914 Alfred married Ada Maria Pullan (1880-1966) who had emigrated from Yorkshire, England in 1907. Alfred also ranched in Ardenode 48 km northeast of Calgary until his passing in 1933. His brother Harold took over ranch operations, and the house was rented and adapted to a curious variety of uses. Dr. R.H. MacLauchlan used it as an abortion clinic in the 1940s to 1950s; Nickolai and Katharina Wedel’s operated Happyland Kindergarten in the 1960s; after being sold to the City in 1968 it became the Theta Delta Chi Fraternity house; and it became a well-known punk rock house in the early 1980s.
The historic ranch house is also valued for its highly publicized move and restoration to accommodate Crowchild TR widening in 1987. The home was purchased for $1 from the City and moved three blocks west. It was carefully restored by longtime owners Wayne Ellis and Lynne Ellis-Smith.
Sources:
Graybill, Andrew R. (2007). Policing the Great Plains: Rangers, Mounties, and the North American Frontier, 1875–1910. Lincoln, US: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0803260023.
“Ranching History”, David H. Breen, The Canadian Encyclopedia: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ranching-history. Last edited May 29, 2015.