The History of
Scarboro

Scarboro is one of only two fully intact Olmsted firm designs in Canada — the same landscape architecture practice behind Central Park in New York and the US Capitol Grounds. In 1910, Calgary’s CPR land commissioner collaborated with J.C. Olmsted to lay out the neighbourhood as a system of parks and curving boulevards that follow the natural contours of the land. The small green triangles where those curving streets intersect are a signature Olmsted detail, found in the firm’s residential districts from 1869 to 1930.

The neighbourhood has been remarkably preserved. In January 2021, Scarboro became the first area in Calgary to be formally evaluated for heritage significance — a process backed by the National Association for Olmsted Parks and Alberta’s Heritage Resources Management Branch. The only comparable Canadian example is Uplands in Oak Bay, British Columbia, which was designated a National Historic Site in 2019.