Waiting on the Queen (Calgary 1973)

Waiting on the Queen: flashback to the summer of ’73 and her Royal Highness is paying Calgary a visit. On a goodwill tour of Canada, her stop in this city was one of many on what was a whirlwind trip. She was always a busy person during her decades long tenure and kept on it right to the end. She’s gone now, as I’m sure you’ve heard, and the timing of this post was purely coincidental.

In addition to attending celebrations honouring the 300th anniversary of Kingston Ontario, she presided over the the RCMP’s 100th jubilee in Saskatchewan and officially opened the Calgary Stampede. A reader of this website supplied us a picture connected to the latter event and which is presented below in another fun OtBPwC&C Then & Now.

Waiting on the Queen (Calgary 1973): the same intersection decades apart. By Chris Doering & Connie Biggart (BIGDoer/Synd)

This post was first published almost a decade ago and here it’s been respun and updated, while using the original photos. It was long overdue for a tidying up.

In the original we see people gathered at an intersection while awaiting her motorcade and in the now version, we’ll check out how things look today at that same location.

The original was photographed by the father of the person who contributed it to this site and it appears the Queen has yet to show. Clearly anticipation was high, but after all, she was one of the most famous people in the entire world. Maybe she’ll wave!

The police presence is a reminder of the high level of security needed when dealing with a pubic figure of this calibre.

Our location is where 16th Avenue North crosses Centre Street. The way the people have gathered tells us she must have been heading southbound on Centre and towards downtown. Both roads, then as today, are busy. Douglass Drugs No #1 is seen in back, which operated from at least the early 1970s and sometime in the 2000s. Today the building is a dental office.

Other buildings still stand in behind, as you can see, and notice the Safeway sign off in the distance in both images too. Overall the location, from this angle anyway, has changed little in the many years that have passed. In other directions, development has been ongoing, but you’d never know facing this way.

To the left of the photographer’s position, out of frame in the original, was Calgary’s notorious Beacon Hotel. There was not a weekend when it wasn’t in the news and if you liked peelers or bar fights, this was the place for you. The business closed in the 1990s and the land today home to an Asian supermarket. Calgarians might remember doing a little Freakin’ (or Peakin’) at the Beacon.

Of interest to car buffs is the 1973 Plymouth Satellite cop cruiser seen prominently in the old photo. Chrysler products were poplar with law enforcement agencies back then. The purple and white paint scheme was adopted only a few years earlier and in use into the 2000s. They’ve since gone back to the more traditional black and white colours.

The car facing the camera across the intersection appears to be a 1971 Ford LTD. The bright orange 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback is a car of note in our now image.

Calgary’s trolley bus network lasted from 1947-75 and now but a memory. All those trolley wires up there, plus the cable suspended traffic lights and the huge billboard, made for a rather cluttered view back then. Things in that respect are much more open now.

The billboard reads: “Vancouver bound? Stay with friends at Delta’s Airport Inn.” Incidentally, that hotel was almost brand spanking new at the time and still in business today.

If any of our readers remember this event, we’d love to hear from you. In addition to her 1973 visit, Queen Elizabeth also came to Calgary in 1990 and on that earlier trip was accompanied by Prince Philip.

Thanks to James Tworow for allowing us use of this picture and we had a blast shooting the now version. If you have a vintage photo showing a street scene like this you’d us to use in a similar post, please send it our way. Photos must yours or be in the public domain, and can either be scans or paper originals (which can be returned). Were happy to answer your questions!

For our now shots the images are not manipulated in post production, outside minor adjustments for scaling and the results here turned out pretty good. We’ve done a lot of these and love when it all comes together. For every one that’s published, there’s many others that didn’t turn out as hoped and discarded in the bin.

Know more: (new tab): Queen Elizabeth Calgary Visit 1973.

There’s always something new to read here at BIGDoer.com, so be sure and drop by often.

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Main Street Slocan BC.
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East Coulee Alberta then and now.
Crowsnest Pass then and now – Chinook Motel.

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Date of adventure: July 1973 and July 2014.
Location: Calgary, AB.
Article references and thanks: James Tworow for the original photo and old Calgary Herald editions.

In 1973, they were waiting on the Queen…

The intersection of Centre and 16th Ave North.