[2] Land for the park was donated to the City of Calgary in 1911 by John Hextall, as part of a deal to secure the extension of streetcar service into Bowness Estates, which he was developing as an exclusive suburb.

[3] The land consisted of two islands in the Bow River, separated from the south bank by a narrow channel, now dammed off to create a lagoon and small canal.

There was a swimming pool, the lagoon for canoeing and boating (with a fountain and central phonograph “playing gentle music”), a large dancing pavilion, a merry-go-round (now in Calgary's Heritage Park), picnic tables and shelters, swings and teeter-totters, camping sites and cabins which could be rented by the week or month and later a scenic railway.

The following extract from a 1919 newspaper article gives some idea of the atmosphere at the time: “The new ferry, which will cross the original boating lake just west of the swimming pool, will supply a want which was badly felt last season.

It will enable the young people as well as the older ones to shoot across the lake from the grand stand to the refreshment cottage and merry-go-round, without having to tramp around by the lovers' walk or the path at the foot of the lake.”[6]The summer cottages at the park were often rented by families as a summer retreat, beginning in the early 1920s until they were removed in 1946.

Many of the former attractions are gone today: the swimming pool was closed in 1959, dancing ceased in 1960, and the Orthophonic, as the phonograph was called, stopped beaming out its music in 1961.