A former Chinese laundry building in Calgary could be a gateway to a hidden past. It is also in danger.

A building on Ogden Road in Calgary has a rare connection to the history of the city’s Chinese community. But its future hangs in the balance as it is on the path of the proposed Green Line transport system.

On a half-empty stretch of Ogden Road in Calgary is a humble building with plywood windows and a tree covering much of its facade. Its boxy exterior and cream-colored brick walls reveal neither its purpose nor its history. But the utilitarian structure is a 108-year-old holdover from the city’s railroad history – and a marginalized and abused immigrant population.

It was once the Hong Lee Laundry, a combined laundry and housing facility operated by two Chinese immigrants named Eng Hon Quan and Eng Shon Yun. They are believed to have erected the building in 1913, in the city’s early days as a regional hub for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). In its recent past, the building was a block of flats.

But the future of 7044 Ogden Road is now pending as it is en route from Calgary’s proposed Green Line transit system. As his fate draws nearer, concerned parishioners and historians seek to uncover his past and argue why one of the last remaining pieces of Ogden County heritage should be spared – if not because of its physical characteristics, then because of the stories it represents.

READ: Human remains found on Vancouver Island opened a door to a lost world

The retired teacher Bonny Warbeck is one of those who want to save and recognize the building. “There’s so little history in our community,” says Warbeck, noting that the nearby Ogden Hotel, built in 1912, is one of the few listed buildings in the area southeast of downtown.

For Fung Ling Feimo, an arts administrator who is committed to preserving the history of Calgary’s Chinese people, the building provides an opportunity to explore the stories of Chinese immigrants and their displacement in the city. Running a laundry would have been one of the few forms of employment the two men had at the time, as the Chinese, despite their key role in building the Canadian Pacific, were discriminated against across Canada. Due to its proximity to a CP maintenance center known as Ogden Shops, it is likely that they washed the CP staff’s clothes.

What surprises Feimo, however, is its location. At that time, the Chinese were exiled to some areas of Calgary; There were three Chinatowns in the city, two of which have been displaced by development. The building on Ogden Road wasn’t anywhere near them. Feimo spoke to elders in the Calgary Chinese diaspora, and most did not know that 7044 Ogden Road had any connection with Chinese immigrants. “I would like to know, how is it that this place was separated from Chinatown?” She says.

Research by historical consultant Harry Sanders has shown that the empty house after three years as a laundry for Hong Lee, possibly as an annex to the military convalescent hospital in the Hotel Ogden during the First World War. The building was also a polling station during a referendum on the alcohol ban.

Wendy Tynan, communications director for Calgary’s Green Line, says the city has stopped the original plan to demolish the building by the end of the summer. His fate will be decided based on a historical assessment by the province. This review will determine if the building itself has any structural features worth preserving (its period red brick has been repainted and Tynan says the previous owner gutted its newly renovated interior before handing it over to the city for demolition). If the building does not survive, Tynan adds, its history could be thought of in other ways, such as an entry on Calgary’s List of Notable Places.

Whatever the outcome, 7044 Ogden has created more than just a pile of bricks and mortar on a lonely strip of road from this vortex of discovery. “So we need to uncover these stories,” says Feimo, “and explain to the people – not just of Chinese descent, but the wider community – why the site is so important.”

This article appears in print in the September 2021 issue of Macleans Magazine, entitled “Gateway to a Hidden Past”. Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here.