A full tank of history
Saving Eamon’s Camp now seems more likely
The landmark Eamon’s Camp gas station has been given a second chance at life now that the city has put the brakes on demolishing the heritage building. The reversal is a partial victory for the Calgary Heritage Authority, which lists Eamon’s as a historic resource on its inventory of properties that should be saved.
The city’s transportation and transit committee recently approved revisiting the options for the future LRT station planned for the northwest site upon which the 1951 garage sits. The city is considering a number of new scenarios, only one of which calls for the building’s demolition.
The city’s transportation department initially recommended disposing of the building and simply retaining the sign. The change of heart is better late than never. Planners are going back to the drawing board now, five years later, for a review that reflects the old way of thinking that still occasionally afflicts city hall. Officials look at the gas station and see a tired and neglected garage that has limited opportunities to be repurposed.
It is just a garage, granted, but one that is a rare example of corporate architecture from the 1950s. There are just three remaining gas stations from that magical postwar era of the automobile industry. Calgary is an oil and gas superpower today, but it all started with the automobile. Gas stations like Eamon’s once dotted the North American landscape; a testament to how the automobile drove the economy back then. The industry gave rise to jobs, a middle class and cars so cheap, that by the 1950s, teenagers were buying their own wheels for just $25. The automobile didn’t just change America, it changed Calgary as well.
The Eamon’s garage and sign are all that’s left of the 1950s “one-stop tourist centre” on the old Highway No. 1, where drivers would stop and gas up on their way from Calgary to Banff. According to the historic assessment, the building’s architectural significance is that it represents the art moderne style of design, which features curved stucco walls illustrated by the wing profile of the station, and the “dynamic geometric form of the entry canopy.”
The vertical sign is an integral part of the station’s profile. Administration wants to remove the building temporarily and store it off site while the park-and-ride site is prepared. The building would be relocated to a new spot within the lot, and the sign would be refurbished separately, as planned.
That option risks damaging the structural integrity of the garage by lifting and moving it twice, and keeping it in storage. Never mind the needless extra costs. It also compromises the historical relevance of keeping the building and art deco sign together, in their original context and site.
The best option identified by administration is the proposal that calls for exactly that scenario. For the same estimated budget as the option preferred by administration, the city could redesign the future LRT station around the historic garage, but with fewer parking stalls than originally calculated.
Fewer parking stalls seems like a small price to pay to be true to the rich history of Eamon’s. The sign and the station must remain together, and restored at their original location.