Chinook Centre: A City Within A City
As Chinook Centre prepares for its 50th anniversary in 2010, the shopping centre has released a new book that tells the tale of both Chinook and the city of Calgary over the past half century. As Calgary has grown, so too has Chinook Centre.
By Monica Zurowski, Calgary Herald
Te dream started in a dusty field, about a half-mile south of town.
Save for the chirping of a few crickets, the air was still. The first star of the night twinkled in the sweeping prairie sky. To the west, the Rockies faded from purple to grey, as the sun slipped behind them.
Headlights of vehicles cut through the dusk, as a small line of cars made its way from Calgary towards the field. Western Canada's first drivein theatre was about to open. It was May 12, 1949, and it was opening night at the Chinook Drive-In Theatre.
This drive-in would change the face of entertainment in the area for years to come. More importantly, however, it would lead to a dream--the dream of creating Chinook Centre, a development that has helped shape the city of Calgary for five decades and continues to do so today.
When the Chinook Drive-In opened, the Second World War had ended just five years earlier. Cities across North America were moving from an era of difficulty and despair into an age of innovation and optimism.
Inventions burst forward in every field imaginable. A new device called a "stored-program computer" began operation. The first 45-rpm records were introduced. And an awe-inspiring contraption called a Polaroid camera sold for a whopping $89.95.
At the same time, the drivein theatre was becoming an entertainment phenomenon. Created by a guy from New Jersey who nailed a bed-sheet screen to trees in his backyard in 1932, the concept was emerging as the ultimate family diversion.
Five Calgary businessmen knew a good idea when they heard it and decided to bring the drive-in to town. Mervyn "Red" Dutton, Reg Jennings, Frank Kershaw, Harold Millican and Ross Henderson established Western Drive-In Theatres Ltd., with Chinook being their initial drive-in project and one of the first in Canada. When Chinook opened in 1949, there were about 1,000 drive-ins in North America. That number soared to almost 5,000 in less than 10 years.
The movie on Chinook's opening night was Perils of Pauline, with The Count of Monte Cristo taking the big screen the following week.
Admission to Chinook was only 60 cents, while children under 12 were admitted free. Telling of the times were the newspaper ads used to lure Calgarians south of city limits to the drive-in. "Smoke if you like! You can't annoy anybody!" trumpeted one ad, while other promotional lures included "no babysitters; save the cost" and "Don't Dress up! Come as you are."
"The war was over, the economy was starting to explode, and, the drive-in was the place to be for families," says Donald McGregor, whose father Ken honed his promotional and management skills with the Western Drive-In group, before becoming one of Chinook Centre's first managers.
The opening of the Chinook Drive-In Theatre brought together the people, the land and the ideas that would eventually lead to the development of Calgary's largest shopping centre. Step one was complete.
As the 1950s drew to a close, drive-in theatres declined in popularity. . . . When Chinook Drive-In opened, there were only about two million television sets in North America. By the time its closure was announced in the late 1950s, that number skyrocketed to more than 41 million (of which 150,000 were colour sets.) An increasing number of people were choosing to stay at home and make television their number one entertainment choice.
The owners of Chinook, however, were visionaries and they quietly began discussing new options before the decline began.
They were always on the lookout for the next opportunity and the next big thing. Three of them--Red Dutton, Reg Jennings and Frank Kershaw-- had an inkling what that next big thing would be: The shopping centre.
"Just as the automobile helped revolutionize the theatre industry, so is the private passenger car revolutionizing commerce," Kershaw said in an interview with Calgary Herald writer Merv Anderson in the late 1950s.
"The motoring public wants handy parking facilities and one-stop shopping."
Within days of Chinook's announcement that a shopping centre would be built, the official sod-turning ceremony was scheduled. A variety of dignitaries, including Chunky Woodward, were scheduled to arrive in Calgary for the event on Sept. 19, 1958, but the weather wreaked havoc on the day.
When Woodward attempted to leave Vancouver for Calgary that morning, the de-icing equipment on his scheduled TCA(Air Canada's forerunner) plane malfunctioned. An elegant 1 p.m. luncheon at the Palliser Hotel, meant to celebrate the occasion of the sod-turning, was cancelled. Woodward and a handful of his company's Vancouver-based managers were moved to the next available flight to Calgary, but that flight was running late.
The noon sod-turning was postponed to 4 p.m. to await the Vancouver group's arrival, but the weather had one more trick to play.
The drive-in theatre's screen was scheduled to be toppled over, as Woodward dug out the first shovel full of dirt for the new centre. The wind, however, was growing stronger throughout the day and eventually blew over the partially-dismantled screen before the official ceremony and sod turning occurred.
Despite the wind and a rainstorm, spirits were high.
Woodward stood, smiling and surveying the site, before plunging a shovel into the ground. The shovel itself was a significant symbol of the day. It was a $1.49 spade, which had been used to turn the sod for Woodward stores across western Canada, a tradition started by Woodward's late father in 1952.
The now-defunct Albertan newspaper noted that Woodward indicated the project "would be the first one of its size conceived and arranged for entirely in western Canada. . . . It was an indication of what westerners could do when they joined forces."
Mayor Mackay presented each of the developers and visitors with a white hat. Despite the wind and rain, the hats held steady, a symbol of what Calgarians have always valued --hard work, big dreams and optimism.
. . . On opening day, thousands sands of
Calgarians were taking in the spectacle of the new Chinook Shopping Centre. Final cost had come in at $12.5 million --$8 million for the buildings and $4 million for the fixtures.
The centre was an open-air mall (except for an underground concourse) and consisted of two sizable blocks of retail stores and services, along with the substantial Woodward's complex.
. . . Within Chinook Centre, Calgarians discovered a world of shopping wonder, exploring stores and services that many described as "very modern."
At Sterling Shoes, for example, 15,000 pairs were for sale in the relatively new "salon style" store. That meant only one pair of each style of shoes was put on display, removing rows of shoeboxes from the shopper's view. If a customer wanted a certain size, the salesperson went to a back room to fetch them. It was very innovative at the time. . . . And, "if you fancy a baby alligator handbag, there's one here for about $300," said a newspaper ad supplement.
Most clothing and accessories, however, were priced in the mid-range. Wool suits for men started at $39.95 at MacLeod Bros. For women, nylons were 39 cents a pair at Reitman's, Reit-
blouses cost $2.88 to $3.88 at Career Girl and car coats started at $15.88, with prices rising higher if the coats featured the stylish mink trim.
Betty Shop, which was becoming a favourite stop for women's attire, advertised clothes for the college crowd and beyond. "Women no longer don a black dress and shawl when they hit the 40-year milestone," the shop noted in the opening day supplement. "In many cases it's difficult to tell where the campus years end and the matronly ones begin. Women are dressing gay and young as they please now, ignoring the calendar."
In addition to clothing stores, Chinook Centre housed a florist, bakery, jeweler, furniture shop, drug store, shoe repair, deli, piano store, cigar shop, camera and stationery stop, bowling alley and a Calgary Herald newspaper office. Shoppers could even find a myna bird named Mickey that greeted visitors at Spence's Shoe Shop.
. . . . Besides these 45 stores and services, Chinook was home to a variety of medical offices, belonging to doctors, dentists, chiropractors, X-ray technicians and optometrists. . . . New ideas and inventions were touted at every turn of the mall. At Woodward's, there were leading-edge cash registers "that do everything but talk," with automatically closing drawers. . . . The advertising supplement noted a public library branch also opening in the centre would allow smoking: "Good lighting and air-conditioning add extra comfort and make it possible to feature a smoking and browsing room--something new for Calgary."
"Chinook Shopping Centre is a city within a city," continued the supplement. "About 1,000 persons are employed within its boundaries, with 1,800 on special sale days. Whether he's a super busy executive or a bus boy, his job is important and affects the smooth working of the entire centre."
Progress, however, never stands still. And while Calgarians celebrated the opening of Chinook, the owners were already thinking about future development. The centre's opening day press release noted that Chinook's first expansion would include construction of two-storey retail areas that would be enclosed. Other development would feature an eight-storey structure, which would house more stores, a medical clinic and offices.
A theatre was being planned, and also being considered were an auditorium and skating rink. Tentative cost would be $4 to $5 million. Chinook Centre was indeed becoming a city within a city --a city that was destined to keep growing.
REPRINTED FROM CHINOOK CENTRE: A CITY WITHIN A CITY, AVAILABLE MONDAY AT CHINOOK CENTRE'S KIOSK IN CENTRE COURT AND AT CHAPTERS IN THE MALL. ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE BOOK WILL BENEFIT LOCAL LITERACY AGENCIES THROUGH CANWEST'S RAISE-A-READER
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Chinook+Centre+City+Within+City/2225342/story.html
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