The Pumphouse Theatres Used to Push Water, Not Drama

For 54 years, the red-brick building on the south bank of the Bow River pushed water, not drama.

Canada’s Historic Places register says Bow River Pumphouse No. 2 served the city’s water system from 1913 to 1967, first as the main intake and pumping station and later as a booster station. It supplied about 68 million litres a day and tripled the city’s previous water capacity.

That sounds like a dry fact until you read what the register says it made possible: taller buildings and better fire-fighting. A theatre came later. The pump had a head start.

How a pump station became a theatre

The Pumphouse Theatres history page says the facility shut down in 1968 and Joyce Doolittle began advocating for its conversion to a community theatre. Construction to make it a performance venue began in 1972, and the Calgary Youth Drama Society leased the building from the City of Calgary. In 1973 the society opened the Shed Theatre.

The University of Calgary Archives holds the society’s records and names its founders as Joyce Doolittle, Ellen Tims, Victor Mitchell and Ernest Watkins. The collection runs to 666 photographs, 219 posters and 108 architectural plans, plus bylaws, meeting minutes, booking records and programs. It’s a good file to know about if you like seeing how a theatre actually gets built.

The archive adds that by the late 1990s the venue had expanded into drama day camps for children and sponsored a one-act play festival, and its posters span 1971 to 1997.

A small warning if you cross-check the dates yourself. The archive gives 1914 for the original construction and says renovation began in 1971, while the register and the theatre say 1913 and 1972. We have used the register and the theatre’s own history where they agree, and left out the dates that conflict.

What changed in 1982

According to the Pumphouse, major renovations finished that year. The pump room became the Joyce Doolittle Theatre, and the Shed was transformed into the 300-seat Victor Mitchell Theatre. The society later renamed itself the Pumphouse Theatres Society. The theatre also says it began its first Drama Day Camp in 1984 and welcomed its one-millionth patron in 2005.

What’s protected inside the building

The register places the building in Calgary’s Sunalta neighbourhood and calls it functional industrial design, with load-bearing brick walls and a timber-truss roof. It was designed so it would not fail.

Inside, the register lists open floor space, a king-post timber-truss roof, a steel track for moving equipment, the original Mathers and Platt pump and the water intake line. Outside, it describes a red-brick building with a hipped roof, pressed brick walls and regularly spaced piers, set among mature poplar trees.

The recognitions stack up. The Pumphouse says it became a Provincial Registered Historic Resource in 1975, and that in 1980 the American Water Works Association honoured it as a Canadian Water Landmark. The register also lists it as a Municipal Historic Resource.

The best part of the Pumphouse is the order of its history. Calgary kept the machinery and then let the actors in around it. Next time you have a ticket in hand, look up at the roof trusses first.

Keep going with Joyce Doolittle Helped Build Calgary Drama From the Ground Up or Six rooms, four names and one very busy arts centre, whichever calls to you. Or try Shakespeare Has Had Quite a Time in Calgary for a change of pace.

If this one hooked you, we think Calgary Was Almost Called Fort Brisebois and Workshop 14 Grew Up and Became Theatre Calgary are a good next read.

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