When Calgary’s first mayor and council were elected the event was a modest affair. Calgary had become a town in 1884 and the Calgary Herald Mining and Ranche Advocate and General Advertiser (as we were grandly called at the time) — already a one-year-old newspaper — covered that election.
As the following 137-year-old graphic shows, George Murdoch became Calgary’s first elected mayor, capturing 202 votes compared to the 16 garnered by his opponent E. Redpath. Murdoch had moved to Calgary the previous year and as an early businessman (he owned a harness shop), he’d been part of the group of Calgarians who successfully lobbied to incorporate the town.
Here is one of Murdoch’s own ads for his business, published in the Herald that summer of 1884.
Murdoch appeared to be popular with his fellow Calgarians. In the months leading up to his election as mayor, the following ad appeared in the Herald a number of times, in which 102 citizens publicly asked Murdoch to allow his name to stand for the mayor’s office. In those ads, Murdoch himself responded that he would cheerfully accept the nomination.
Any British male subject, over age 21 who owned property worth $300 or more was able to vote in this first civic election. Election results appeared alongside ads for suits, booze, medicines, marriage licences, surgeons and more. But one of the most prominent ads in that day’s paper (Dec. 3, 1884) appeared on the front page, advertising “Xmas Cards and Presents for the Old Folks at Home!”
The town was definitely on an upswing, after being incorporated. In fact, the owners of I.G. Baker & Co. said in an ad that news of the incorporation had arrived with the impact of an “earthquake.” The news was almost as exciting as the “drop in prices” that the store advertised on Nov, 12, 1884. The ad next to I.G. Baker had a pretty sweet offer, too: People could buy a lot for a house for the princely sum of 50 bucks.
