History of Edmonton
[4] The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), a competitor with the North West Company in the North American fur trade, built Edmonton House (later Fort Edmonton) adjacent to Fort Augustus a few months later.
[5][6][4] In 1802, both forts were moved 30 kilometres (19 mi) upstream (southwest) to the Rossdale Flats, close by present-day downtown Edmonton.
[4] The fort served as headquarters for the HBC fur trade operations North Saskatchewan District of Rupert's Land.
[4] The Rossdale fort was in use until 1830 when flood of the North Saskatchewan River prompted a move to higher ground.
[4] The decline of the fur trade, which started in the 1860s, led to the abandonment of the operation at Fort Edmonton in the following decades.
The first settlement outside of the fort was in the 1870s, pioneer farmers living in rustic log cabins along the river - these farms formed the structure for the 1882 survey of the land into "riverlots", as exceptions to the usual grid-format Dominion Land Survey dominant across the rest of the Prairies.
In 1870, the Hudson's Bay Company had been granted a reserve on much of the present downtown, but by 1913, it was all sold off at the peak of the pre-World War I land price inflationary boom.
[8] Just prior to World War I, the real estate boom and general prosperity ended suddenly, causing the city's population to decline sharply—from over 72,500 in 1914 to less than 54,000 only two years later.
From that low point, Edmonton's population and economy grew only slowly during the 1920s and 1930s, (It took off during and after World War II.)
[10] Pioneering aviators such as Wilfrid R. "Wop" May and Max Ward used Blatchford Field as a major base for the distribution of mail, food, and medicine to Northern Canada; hence Edmonton's role as the "Gateway to the North" was strengthened.
World War II saw Edmonton's becoming a major base for the construction of the Alaska Highway and its airport was an important station on the Northwest Staging Route.
[11] The first major oil discovery in Alberta was made on February 13, 1947, near the town of Leduc, south of Edmonton.
[14] Still the biggest in North America, the mall is one of Alberta's most-visited tourist attractions, and contains an indoor amusement park, a large indoor waterpark, a skating rink, a full-size replica of the Santa María, a dining and bar district, and a luxury hotel, in addition to over 700 shops and services.
[15][16] On June 14, 1986, when Galaxyland's Mindbender derailed and slammed into a post, three people died and the fourth was injured.
Due to demand of density outside the core, three neighbourhoods (two just outside downtown)—Century Park, Glenora, and Strathearn—have proposed new high-rise urban villages, several of which were under construction as of 2009[update].
