Burns Barn

This barn was built in 1927 for the P. Burns and Company Bow Valley Ranch in Calgary. Its owner, Patrick Burns, was one of the celebrated Big Four who first invested in Guy Weadick’s Calgary Stampede in 1912.

Large attractive farm buildings were a sign of prosperity. The horse barn was built on a P. Burns Ranches Limited feedlot in what is now southeast Calgary.

Patrick Burns immigrated to western Canada in 1878, joining the vanguard of Ontario farmers seeking homesteads. To earn working capital, he started freighting goods from Winnipeg and buying and selling cattle. He soon won contracts with numerous railway companies, including Canadian Pacific Railway, to provide meat to the work crews. By expanding aggressively into ranching, parking, and the retail meat trade, he established the largest integrated meat business in Canada and became Calgary’s first millionaire.

Patrick Burns was one of the “Big Four” cattlemen who helped finance the first Calgary Stampede in 1912. In 1928 he sold the meat packing business but retained his vast cattle ranches. He was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1931.

Over the years, Burns bought thousands of acres of rangeland throughout Western Canada, including the famous Bar U Ranch, and William Roper Hull’s Bow Valley Ranch in Calgary. P. Burns Ranches Ltd. of Calgary donated the barn to Heritage Park in 1977. The Burns’ Barn is now used for the Park’s summer camps and educational programs.