It was a cold calculation.
Say an atomic bomb exploded at the intersection of Jasper Avenue and 100 Street. How far west, upwind of the blast, would you have to go before you started to find survivors?
In 1951, military experts did the math. The answer they came up with was Grovenor.
People in the neighbourhood could have interpreted that news as at least a bit reassuring. They’d be battered and bruised, perhaps turned into hideous mutants, but at least they’d be alive. Instead, they were preoccupied about what the provincial government had decided was the logical thing to do in the circumstances: plan a reinforced concrete bunker at 10320 146 Street, so the premier and his senior advisors would have somewhere safe to go in the event of war.
Locals “claim the district is a residential area, and as such a large civil defence office should not be built there,” notes a newspaper clipping from July 26, 1951. However, a petition against rezoning proved ill-matched against Cold War hysteria, and for $60,000, the Poole Construction Company received the contract to begin construction.
Work was completed by February 1952, with the project coming in $5,000 over budget. The opening ceremony was cancelled because of the death of King George VI.
The Journal reported: “In the event that Canada should be attacked by a foreign nation, the building on 146 Street now is designed to serve as coordination centre for the province’s defence efforts. A communications network centred at the new headquarters would keep key defence personnel appraised [sic] of developments in every corner of Alberta. From the Edmonton office would go directives to defence workers everywhere in the province.”
For Grovenor residents, it was like having a giant bull’s eye painted on the middle of the neighbourhood. “A direct hit by an enemy bomb could put us out of business,” Air Vice Marshal G.R. Howsam, chief coordinator of civil defence, told reporters. “But if we suffered anything but a direct hit, we would be adequately defended.”
In other words, forget bombing Jasper Avenue. Aim for 146 Street.
Initially, the vice marshal had a permanent staff of six men and four women under his command, but “hundreds more will make the building their headquarters” in case of a nuclear attack, according the newspaper account. There were emergency kitchen and washroom facilities to help house Alberta’s top politicians and civil servants through the crisis period.
Also on site was a radio transmitter, to facilitate communications with the survivors.
(“You’re listening to Alberta Government Radio. It’s another fine day here in our nuclear wasteland, but rest assured that Premier Manning is safe and sound. Stay tuned for more Amos ‘n’ Andy, coming up next.”)
In retrospect, the whole concept of civil defence comes across as equally earnest and silly. It is hard to remember the context: many Edmontonians had witnessed the destruction of European and Asian cities a decade earlier during the Second World War. They knew what bombers could do to a populated area. In the 1950s, air raid sirens became a feature of Edmonton’s landscape.
“Under the federal regulations, there are two public action signals,” the Journal noted. “The alert is a steady blast of three to five minutes. The second signal is the take cover, which is a wailing tone, lasting about three minutes.”
Occasionally the government would simulate a nuclear attack, with government officials reporting the Grovenor shelter, something which must have brought terrible anxiety to the neighbourhood. Here’s the caption from a 1954 photograph, which shows the lieutenant-governor and several of his ministers ensconced in the emergency facility.
“Provincial civil defence headquarters at 146 Street and 103 Avenue buzzed with activity Monday as Edmonton took part in Operation Alert – the first large-scale civil defence exercises for the continent. Six Canadian cities were considered atom-bombed, along with 42 American cities. Directors are shown minutes before a bomb theoretically exploded over Edmonton at 10:43 a.m.”
Very soon after it was opened, the shelter was practically obsolete, owing to advances in nuclear weaponry. Walls seven-feet-thick wouldn’t keep out lethal levels of radiation. Over time, the above ground portion of the building was substantially redesigned and used by a variety of government departments. Then it was leased to Lockerbie and Hole, the contracting firm, and more recently to Phoenix Insurance. People who’ve visited the facility say evidence of the original shelter can still be found in the basement.
In you’ve ever wondered how an office building came to exist in the middle of residential Grovenor, now you know who to blame: the Red Menace.
Say an atomic bomb exploded at the intersection of Jasper Avenue and 100 Street. How far west, upwind of the blast, would you have to go before you started to find survivors?
In 1951, military experts did the math. The answer they came up with was Grovenor.
People in the neighbourhood could have interpreted that news as at least a bit reassuring. They’d be battered and bruised, perhaps turned into hideous mutants, but at least they’d be alive. Instead, they were preoccupied about what the provincial government had decided was the logical thing to do in the circumstances: plan a reinforced concrete bunker at 10320 146 Street, so the premier and his senior advisors would have somewhere safe to go in the event of war.
Locals “claim the district is a residential area, and as such a large civil defence office should not be built there,” notes a newspaper clipping from July 26, 1951. However, a petition against rezoning proved ill-matched against Cold War hysteria, and for $60,000, the Poole Construction Company received the contract to begin construction.
Work was completed by February 1952, with the project coming in $5,000 over budget. The opening ceremony was cancelled because of the death of King George VI.
The Journal reported: “In the event that Canada should be attacked by a foreign nation, the building on 146 Street now is designed to serve as coordination centre for the province’s defence efforts. A communications network centred at the new headquarters would keep key defence personnel appraised [sic] of developments in every corner of Alberta. From the Edmonton office would go directives to defence workers everywhere in the province.”
For Grovenor residents, it was like having a giant bull’s eye painted on the middle of the neighbourhood. “A direct hit by an enemy bomb could put us out of business,” Air Vice Marshal G.R. Howsam, chief coordinator of civil defence, told reporters. “But if we suffered anything but a direct hit, we would be adequately defended.”
In other words, forget bombing Jasper Avenue. Aim for 146 Street.
Initially, the vice marshal had a permanent staff of six men and four women under his command, but “hundreds more will make the building their headquarters” in case of a nuclear attack, according the newspaper account. There were emergency kitchen and washroom facilities to help house Alberta’s top politicians and civil servants through the crisis period.
Also on site was a radio transmitter, to facilitate communications with the survivors.
(“You’re listening to Alberta Government Radio. It’s another fine day here in our nuclear wasteland, but rest assured that Premier Manning is safe and sound. Stay tuned for more Amos ‘n’ Andy, coming up next.”)
In retrospect, the whole concept of civil defence comes across as equally earnest and silly. It is hard to remember the context: many Edmontonians had witnessed the destruction of European and Asian cities a decade earlier during the Second World War. They knew what bombers could do to a populated area. In the 1950s, air raid sirens became a feature of Edmonton’s landscape.
“Under the federal regulations, there are two public action signals,” the Journal noted. “The alert is a steady blast of three to five minutes. The second signal is the take cover, which is a wailing tone, lasting about three minutes.”
Occasionally the government would simulate a nuclear attack, with government officials reporting the Grovenor shelter, something which must have brought terrible anxiety to the neighbourhood. Here’s the caption from a 1954 photograph, which shows the lieutenant-governor and several of his ministers ensconced in the emergency facility.
“Provincial civil defence headquarters at 146 Street and 103 Avenue buzzed with activity Monday as Edmonton took part in Operation Alert – the first large-scale civil defence exercises for the continent. Six Canadian cities were considered atom-bombed, along with 42 American cities. Directors are shown minutes before a bomb theoretically exploded over Edmonton at 10:43 a.m.”
Very soon after it was opened, the shelter was practically obsolete, owing to advances in nuclear weaponry. Walls seven-feet-thick wouldn’t keep out lethal levels of radiation. Over time, the above ground portion of the building was substantially redesigned and used by a variety of government departments. Then it was leased to Lockerbie and Hole, the contracting firm, and more recently to Phoenix Insurance. People who’ve visited the facility say evidence of the original shelter can still be found in the basement.
In you’ve ever wondered how an office building came to exist in the middle of residential Grovenor, now you know who to blame: the Red Menace.