Every day, passengers get on at the Tuscany LRT station in northwest Calgary, passing by an Art Deco sign with the name “Eamon’s Bungalow Camp” affixed to the bus shelter.
The sign, with its sharp angles and slanted body, is the last vestige of the site’s diverse history; a totem of Bearspaw’s past and the only hint of the once vibrant multi-use site.
“It was probably one of the most long term significant businesses that ever existed in that area,” said former owner Bob Everett.
“For some people, driving by it meant something. It was a really important place for people that lived in that area,” Everett said. “I’ve had people come forward that have been married there.”
Before the LRT station, before the City of Calgary annexed the land, and before it became “Eamon’s One-Stop Tourist Centre”, it was a strip of prairie ripe with potential, as the site’s namesake saw it.
The titular Roy Eamon purchased the land in 1947, Everett recounted. First using the site for his horses, and then establishing a 10,000-foot chicken farm, which promptly burnt down.
Undeterred, Eamon opened a drive-in diner two years later, eventually becoming a full-fledged restaurant. With the help of the Alberta Treasury Branch, Eamon was able to build a motel and a Texaco gas station was established.
But then disaster struck, and the restaurant of “Eamon’s One-Stop Tourist Centre” burnt down in 1961.
Everett said Eamon reached out desperately to fire departments in Cochrane, Calgary and other communities in the county, but no one responded.
“He basically had to watch the thing burn to the ground.”
To add insult to injury, in 1966, the station was forced to close when Texaco couldn’t acquire the land permits with the opening of the Trans-Canada Highway segment.
The site sat unused for years, with the exception of Eamon living on the land. It wasn’t until 1986 that the location scout for Corey Hart’s music video “I Am Here By Your Side” happened to notice two Texaco gasoline pumps at Everett’s restaurant in Bragg Creek. The two got to talking and Everett then pointed the scout to the former site as a potential shooting locale.
With its brief time in the limelight, Everett discovered the station building was for sale and promptly bought it with partner Jim Sibthorpe.
Despite their restoration efforts – first converting it into a residence and then a retro ‘50s-style diner – they had to sell off the property after the City of Calgary annexed the land, Everett said.
The station building was moved to Stavely, where it awaits a decision on its future by the city. In March of this year, city officials recommended putting the property up for sale. “They opened the door to make offers to buy it, but there was nothing that even acknowledged all the work we put into it.”
Roger Pilkington, formerly of the Bearspaw Historical Society, remembers going on his first date to Eamon’s with his wife in 1963. As the former project manager of the relocation and restoration of the community’s historic school – which he said gets significant use – Pilkington believes a similar outcome is possible with the station building.
“I see if we put the Eamon’s building back, it will take a life of its own.”
In his continued fight for the building, Everett has formed the Roy Eamon Cultural and Heritage Society.
He asks people with any interest in the station’s future to contribute to the society’s ‘gofundme’ page to raise $400,000 required to restore the building.
Visit the ‘gofundme’ page at gofundme.com/unbjrc or the group’s Facebook page “Eamon Station” for more information or to help out.
