What’s in a Name?
The Gazette is looking at the history behind the names of places in St. Albert in light of the city’s move to rename the Grandin neighbourhood. Curious about a place’s name? Send it in to [email protected] so it can be examined in a future story.
There wasn’t always a Cunningham Road in St. Albert. Once upon a time, it was Namao Road. Before that, it was Second Street. When the first Cunningham came to this region in the late 1800s, the road was likely naught but field and forest.
St. Albert has plenty of place names, many of which refer to specific people from its history. Some, such as Vital Grandin, have proved controversial, leading to calls to rename them. To mark this year’s reconsideration of the Grandin name, the Gazette has launched this ongoing series on the people and stories behind St. Albert’s place names.
How streets got names
Most of St. Albert’s early streets were named after Catholic saints such as St. Vital, said Vino Vipulanantharajah, archivist with the Musée Héritage Museum. St. Albert briefly switched to a dual system of street names and numbers in 1951 because of pressure from Northwestern Utilities, which wanted communities to number their streets before it would bring in natural gas service. Utility bills from this period often listed two names for the same street; St. Anne St. was also known at 50th Ave., for example. The town dumped street numbers entirely in 1958.
St. Albert’s current system of street names started in October 1957, according to Black Robe’s Vision. During a time of rapid growth, town administrators made plans to build about 700 homes in four neighbourhoods dubbed Mission Park, Braeside, Grandin Park, and Sturgeon Heights. Street names in each neighbourhood were to start with the initial letter of that neighbourhood’s name — a convention St. Albert has generally followed ever since.
Storied family
The road now known as Cunningham was initially called Second Street, Vipulanantharajah said. St. Albert leaders renamed it to Namao Road in 1958 and then Cunningham Road in November 1969. While this was originally meant to honour Samuel Cunningham, Vipulanantharajah said the street is nowadays thought to represent the entire Cunningham clan.
The first Cunningham to settle in what would become St. Albert was John Cunningham. He arrived after a long career with the Hudson’s Bay Company, one that saw him voyage through Oregon and Saskatchewan, help discover Radium Hot Springs, and survive a gun duel in Manitoba. He married Rosalie L’Hirondelle in 1846, settled near Big Lake, and had 11 kids, including the aforementioned Samuel Cunningham.
Samuel is perhaps best known locally as a captain with the St. Albert Mounted Rifles — this community’s first-ever militia. He also helped government surveyors lay out St. Albert Trail, served as St. Albert’s first representative on the Northwest Territorial Council, and was the first mayor of Grouard, Black Robe’s Vision says. Samuel’s brothers Henry and Edward also made their marks on history, the former as a St. Albert town councillor and the latter as the first Métis from Alberta to become a priest.
Edward Cunningham, 87, is a descendant of these early Cunninghams and lives just west of St. Albert.
“Henry was my grandfather,” he said, and Edward his namesake.
Edward said he grew up helping his father Patrick on the farm and taking a horse and cart to the Cunningham School, which once stood northwest of St. Albert on RR 263. Students used pens and inkwells back then, and farmers cut hay using scythes.
Edward recalled what happened when Imperial Oil struck oil near his house during his teens.
“The house was covered with oil,” he said, and the company had to put new siding on it.
Edward said he delivered bottled milk for Edmonton’s Silverwood Dairy (famed for the giant milk bottle on its roof) for about 10 years in the 1960s. By the 1970s, he tired of cold milk and bought a couple of buses to start Cunningham Transport.
The company now has about 200 buses and takes about 10,000 kids to and from school each day, said Laura Doroshenko, general manager of Cunningham Transport and Edward’s daughter.
There are now hundreds of Cunninghams scattered across Canada, Doroshenko said. One of them, the late Chester Cunningham, is even in the Order of Canada.
Doroshenko said she feels pride whenever she drives down Cunningham Road.
“I’m glad the community is acknowledging the impact of our ancestors.”
