St. Mary's Pioneer Cemetery

In 1876, the year after the Redcoats built their stockade, the Roman Catholic Mission established a burial ground at Second Street & 24 Avenue S.W. The first recorded burial took place in February of that year. After 10 years of use, the small grave yard was officially registered as a cemetery in 1886. When the cemetery closed in 1897, the early graves were exhumed and moved to the site of the new St. Mary's Cemetery, which had been established on the west side of Macleod Trail at Erlton Street and 32 Avenue S.W. The City of Calgary assumed management of St. Mary's Cemetery in 1935, and over time the cemetery was expanded to the south and east. The original northern portion of St. Mary's Cemetery is now known as St. Mary's Pioneer Cemetery.The Calgary Heritage Authority deemed St. Mary’s Cemetery to be a historically significant cultural landscape that played an important part in the settlement and establishment of Calgary as a city. Today it is known as one of the city’s oldest Catholic cemeteries.