Calgary·Audio

Stories of Calgary neighbourhoods as you've never heard them

Listen to Calgary's hidden history from legendary broadcaster Jack Peach. How Sunnyside got its name. When Sunalta was a sandstone quarry and you could rent a cottage for the summer in Bowness Park.

From our archives: More of Jack Peach on our city’s incredible past

A view of downtown Calgary circa 1910. (Glenbow Archives)

This story was originally published Jan. 1.


You spoke, we listened.

A few days ago we shared a few of the 'Jack Peach's Calgary' recordings, a little radio gold recaptured and made available here on the web after many years.

It seems, judging from the comments section on that story, that folks liked these historical gems.

A lot.

So, here are three more from our CBC archives.

Peach, one of the earliest and best known of our city's historians, recorded his musings for the Calgary Eyeopener in the 1970s. 

An early photo of Jack Peach with CBC (Vancouver) affiliate CBR where he served as station announcer circa 1943. (Seffans-Colmer/vanasitwas.wordpress.com)

He was born in Calgary in 1913, and died in 1993. During his long life here, Jack Peach wrote many books on our city and its institutions, as well as a column in the Calgary Herald, radio broadcasts for us here at the CBC.

As part of our Calgary at a Crossroads project, we're looking at who we are as a city, and where we want to go.

But also, in order to understand all that, we need to know who we were.

What made Calgary the city it is.

Here are the stories of three of our city's iconic neighbourhoods.

17th Avenue

The Devenish apartments and a streetcar. The corner of 17th Avenue and Eighth Street S.W. in 1912. (Glenbow Archives)
Jack Peach on 17th Avenue

Hillhurst-Sunnyside

A 1909 football game on the prairie grass of Hillhurst. (Glenbow Archives)
Jack Peach on Hillhurst-Sunnyside

Bowness Park

Boating on the Bow in Bowness Park, circa 1920. (Glenbow Archives)
Jack Peach on Bowness Park

Calgary at a Crossroads is CBC Calgary's special focus on life in our city during the downturn, a look at Calgary's culture, identity and what it means to be Calgarian. Read more stories from the series at Calgary at a Crossroads.