James Gibbons Residence
By Lawrence Herzog
Herzog on Heritage | May 27, 2011 | Article 001
Built 100 years ago, the Georgian Revival-style residence at 10534 125th Street is notable especially for its connection to one of Edmonton’s most colourful early pioneers. The two-and-a-half-storey brick house was the retirement home for James Gibbons, a goldminer, trapper, trader in furs and whiskey, farmer, stage coach driver, buffalo hunter, scout, homesteader and merchant.
The residence was designated a Provincial Historic Resource in 1987. “This stately home reflects the aspirations and progress of its owner and of the early community itself,” noted an evaluation prepared for the province’s Historic Resources Management Branch. “Stylistically simple but well appointed, the house displays a bellcast hip roof, scrolled eave brackets, stone quoining and a wraparound verandah with paired square wooden columns on plastered brick piers.”
Gibbons was born on Christmas Day, 1837, in Holly Hill, Donegal, Ireland. He was the son of a farmer, and at age 15 left Ireland to stay with his uncle William in America.
With adventure in his veins, Young Jim couldn’t sit still for long, and soon joined with the hordes chasing riches in the California gold fields. News of a gold strike on the Fraser River drew him to British Columbia, and he also went chasing nuggets in Idaho and Montana.
He arrived in Edmonton around 1864 and began panning gold up and down the North Saskatchewan River, joined with some buffalo hunters for a couple of seasons, and took trading trips between Edmonton and Winnipeg. While working the gravel flats near Clover Bar, he devised his "grizzly screen" for separating gold from rock and gravel.
In 1873, at the age of 35, he married 14-year-old Marie Isabel Gouin, a Metis girl who lived in Edmonton. She was to bear him 13 children. The newlyweds decided to settle permanently in Edmonton, and in 1878, Gibbons applied to homestead on Miner's Flats, where Laurier Park and the Valley Zoo are now located.
Gibbons began operating a wholesale liquor store and served as a wagon boss with the troops sent against Louis Riel in 1885, and he reportedly buried the dead after the Frog Lake massacre. He participated in the formation of the Edmonton Board of Trade in 1889, and when the Old Timers Association was formed in 1894, served as its first president. Two years later, he was appointed Indian Agent at Stony Plain.
During his lifetime, Gibbons saw Edmonton grow from a declining fur trade outpost to a vibrant city of more than 75,000 residents. He retired in 1908, and bought two lots on 125th Street for $3,000.
Records indicate that between 1905 and 1907, the land was owned by Fred T. Fisher, secretary of the Edmonton Board of Trade. Fisher arrived in Edmonton around 1900 and served as a manager of the Hudson’s Bay Company stores.
A construction permit for the north lot was issued on June 28, 1911, and Gibbons hired Boyle Street contractor Gabriel J. Thorpe to build a house. The total cost was $7,000. If there was an architect, his name appears lost in time.
The Gibbons Residence is patterned after Georgian Revival residential designs which were popular across Canada and the United States from the 1880s until around 1915, observes a report compiled for the Historic Resources Management Branch. “Characteristics of the classically derived style include the broad eaves overhang with brackets under the eaves, a central doorway with transom lights, a wrap-around verandah supported by twin boxed columns, and a tall central, decorated chimney stack.”
The orange brick house is capped by a hipped roof with two ornamental gable dormers, also typical of Georgian Revival residential designs. Many variations on the Georgian Revival theme can be found throughout Alberta, particularly in larger homes constructed of brick before 1920, the report says.
Built atop a concrete foundation, the wood frame structure spoke to what the report called the “gentrified aspirations” of the city’s emerging class of affluent newcomers. Typical at the time for a home of a person of stature, the foyer was large enough to host substantial gatherings. Gibbons’ daughter Alice was married in the living room in the 1920s.
Gibbons was nearing 74 years of age when he and Marie moved into the residence. In 1912, he constructed another house on his other lot, directly to the south, for the same price. It was a more modest dwelling, and became the home of Kenneth W. MacKenzie, who was Edmonton’s mayor from 1900 to 1901 and again in the 1905 term.
A registry search by Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism indicates that the Gibbons family retained ownership of the house until 1966. That was more than 30 years after James died in 1927 or 1933 (records conflict) and 10 years after Marie passed away in 1956.
Owners have included the Town of Cardston, starting in 1966, and Alexander Eugene Goderichuk in 1979. Over the years, the interior has been subjected to numerous renovations of what one report termed “good workmanship but poor taste.” Yet the exterior has survived largely intact.
Richard and Gillian Caldwell purchased it in 1985 and launched an ambitious restoration, assisted by the province’s Historic Resources Management Branch. Now, as the residence marks its 100th anniversary, it stands proudly once more, a built connection to one of Edmonton’s most colourful early pioneers.
© 2011 Lawrence Herzog. All Rights Reserved.
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