Trinity Lutheran Church in Calgary’s downtown west end ~100 Years Apart: the lead up. It’s a frigid winter’s afternoon, but there’s a reason we didn’t pick warmer weather to shoot this comparison. More in moment. We’re armed with a copy of an old photo and it’s covered in what appears to be hieroglyphics.
Arrows, circles, illegible scribbles and numerous odd lines are drawn between specific points, but they only make sense to the photographer. Then there’s this one yellow-jacketed wearing guy standing in an odd spot, furiously comparing the photo to something he sees in the camera viewfinder. This handsome fellow looks up, then down, squints and points at something over that way. No one watching would ever understand.
Trinity Lutheran Calgary ~100 Years Apart: the city has changed, but it looks the same. Pop history with Chris Doering & Connie Biggart (BIGDoer/Synd).
Let’s thank our own “Johanna (Connie) Biggart” for sponsoring this page and many others at BIGDoer.com. Be like Connie…
There’s this quizzical look, for a moment, some head scratching, and he then moves a little to the side. Nope, doesn’t work. Try again.
Scroll down for photos and to comment.
After more more time and jostling a photo is captured. Then moving ever so slightly to one side, so is another. Rinse and repeat three or four more times. All the while there’s more odd movements and looks of deep thought. There’s the distinct sound of clashing gears and a wisp of smoke.
Just what the heck is going on? To an observer, it’s strange, chaotic and makes no sense. To the person behind the camera, singularly focused on the unknown task, it’s a mission and it’s to be done with military precision.
Observers have just been witness to the creation of a BIGDoer.com Then and Now. The field portion of the program and once back at the “lab”, if things line up as hope on the big screen (and they don’t always work), then comes the research/writing phase.
If not, it’s back to square one and this happens more than we’d like to admit. Case in point this shoot and we needed two visits to get it right. People have asked us to summarize the process and now you know. We do it this way for no other reason than it’s a challenge and a ton of fun.
The result of a comparison shoot like this, if successful, can be something wonderful. You’ll see the subject twice as thought a time traveller standing in the same exact spot at two separate points in history. Today’s subject is Trinity Lutheran a charming little church and manse, scarcely changed over time.
The city, no the world, is so much different, yet here it’s as though the clock has stopped. The church today is on the shadow of an ever growing downtown core and looks rather lost among all the towering buildings.
The Trinity Lutheran congregation dates to the late 1890s, but the church seen here did not come on the scene until the mid-1920s. It took a while to raise the money and to build.
“Originally we were a Norwegian Lutheran Church, an ethnic congregation formed by the workers of the Eau Claire and Bow River Lumber Company.” – Trinity Lutheran Church website.
Other then a few architectural changes it looks very much as built and in a fast moving city like Calgary, it nothing short of amazing. Nothing is static here and especially in the downtown core. We think at least one of the trees in the Then photo appears in our now shot.
Manse is a term defining a home for the resident pastor, and the one here predates the completion of the church. It dates to 1914 and in the comparison photo seems little changed. By the 1980s it no longer served its original function and they’ve rented out since.
When the church and manse were new, this part of downtown had many single family dwellings and it remained this way into the 1970s. You can see a house in the back ground in the Then photo. Now the area is all residential towers and some office blocks. In the mid-1920s Calgary had a population approaching seventy thousand and now it’s over twenty times that.
There’s still a few houses from the old days in the neighbourhood, but only the former manse is used in its original capacity. This make it perhaps the very last house, in the traditional sense, in the downtown core. The few others still standing are occupied by businesses and one is empty – that’s it.
The auto seen in the Then photo (the pastor’s car?) looks to be a Ford Model T Centre Door Sedan from the late 1910s or early 1920s. It was probably pretty new at the time. People today look upon old cars fondly, but it’s doubtful we’ll do the same from those in our photo many years hence.
Since the old photo was shot in the winter, we thought it best to do the same for ours. In spite of the protests of our appendages and the camera itself. Like us, it gets a bit dysfunctional when the temperature plummets (the phone said -18c – 25c with wind chill).
The Then photo is undated, but a hunch tells us it was probably captured soon after they completed the church. Everything looks shiny and new. The Calgary Herald noted it opened in January 1924 and if that’s the case, our photo (early March 2024) is from almost exactly 100 years later. Less a month or so.
The lot next to Trinity Lutheran Church is the Trinity Community Gardens, “dedicated to the beauty and common good of the Eau Claire community and its residents.” – Trinity Lutheran Church Website. Up until the 1990s a house stood here and the garage for the former manse, once belonged to this property.
Many Then photos are sources by us (with the okay of the copyright holder, if not in the public domain) and others by readers. If you have an old photo in your family collection, like the one used here, you think would work in post like this, pleased reach out. If we use, we’ll shoot something similar, chat about it here and give you credit for inspiring the post.
The origins of the photo are not clear. We found it in a number of archives, all without any corroborating information. As such, we assume it’s in the public domain (and most old photos are). Who ever shot it, though, gets our praise. It’s a nicely done image and perhaps was to celebrate the opening of the church, or maybe it’s from an old postcard. We’re not sure.
In some papers Trinity Lutheran is called Norwegian Lutheran Church and in others Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. Today they use Historic Trinity Lutheran Church. The location is at the western periphery the Eau Claire neighbourhood and it was a working class kind of place back when built, but not so much today. Still, this little corner is unchanged and it’s an oasis in crazy, busy world.
Something to say and no one to say it to? Go here: Contact Us!
Date of adventure: mid to late 1920s, but we hope early 1924 (original) and March 2024 (Team BIGDoer). Location: Calgary, Alberta. Article references and thanks: City of Calgary, Historic Trinity Lutheran Church and University of Calgary archives.
Comments are (OFF)