The Samis Block was built in 1909 for $75,000, in what was the eastern end of the downtown business area, later known as Downtown East Village. Despite its location to the new sandstone-clad, steel-framed City Hall under construction just around the corner at 7th Avenue and 2nd Street S.E., it never fulfilled its anticipated potential as a major office block although for several years it did house offices for lawyers, insurance companies and brokerage and real estate firms.
The ground floor commercial space initially housed a short-lived newspaper called “The Calgary News” and the Princess Theatre, which on March 17, 2026 moved further west on the same block into premises of its own. In subsequent years the main floor was used by printing shops, harness and saddlery makers and secondhand stores. In the aftermath of the First World War, (1915-1918) the upper floor offices were converted into and used primarily as residential apartments.
The building’s architect, Leo Dowler, who was born in Kingston, Ontario, was a well known personage in the early period of Calgary’s growth, arriving in Calgary in 1899. He married (first farmer in the district), Sam Livingston’s daughter Marg, in 1905 and they had nine children. Dowler’s competence as an architect was recognized by the Provincial Government when he was named resident architect for the Public Works Department of Alberta.
The Samis Block was a NARROW five storey iron frame office building. Reportedly, it was one of the earliest to employ the large windows and vertical line’s typical of the Chicago School of Architecture. The front façade of the building was made of smooth sandstone, while the remaining walls were of brick. A huge vault, an elevator and stairwell served all floors. Two skylights provided illumination over the stairwell. There was some indication that Samis ran short of money and scrimped on the interior details. Two commercial premises located on the ground floor had a common recessed entrance, and access to the upper floors was through a doorway in the southeast corner of the block.
The building’s original owner journalist and real estate investor, Adoniram Judson Samis, whose name was given to him in honour of the great missionary to Burma, (renamed in 1989 as The Republic of the Union of Myanmar), came to Calgary via Olds, NWT in 1904. A prominent Calgary resident, a staunch crusader for moral and social reform, he entered civic politics in 1907 when he ran successfully for the office of alderman, and served three terms and a number of years as Commissioner. His fight against prostitution and associated vices kept his name in the limelight for a number of years.
Samis thought the office building was a good investment at the time, because it had been rumoured that the Grand Trunk Railway would build a terminal three blocks away on the site of the old Northwest Mounted Police barracks, (Fort Calgary). The terminal was never built.
By 1922, Samis who was born in Sarnia, Ontario on December 27, 1873, was ill and in considerable financial difficulty. (Everything was changed in the city when the boom days faded, followed by the difficult war years, and many businessmen in Calgary who went broke lost their business blocks). He tried to weather the financial storms with the Samis Block. On December 15th of that year he left his debts and this city behind, boarding the Spokane Express, bound for Los Angeles where he died in 1942. Samis Road in Crescent Heights is named in his honour.
The Samis Block, (in later years the Calgary Apartments), and other 8th Avenue East properties, including the Princess (Variety) Theatre and the David (Victoria Apartments) Building were expropriated by the city December 1971, as part of the 1960’s Urban Renewal Scheme and the civic centre project. The Eastern end of 8th street permanently closed and in August 1974, the Samis Block and neighbouring buildings were demolished to prepare for the construction of the new municipal building and parkade in 1985-1986.
(Something most people may not know, the Samis Block was considered to have significant local, historical and architectural interest, and was viewed by some as suitable for adaptation to new uses. In the words of one Alderman at the time…he’d go along with preserving, “If the province wants to pay, but not if public money has to be spent.” Then…”If the city wants to have crummy buildings around city hall, be my guest.”)
