Editing Calgary Stampede (section)

===Expansion===
The discovery of the [[Leduc No. 1]] oil well in 1946 and major reserves in the [[Turner Valley, Alberta|Turner Valley]] area southwest of the city ushered in a period of growth and prosperity. Calgary was transformed from an agricultural community into the oil and gas capital of Canada.<ref name="Gray136">{{harvnb|Gray|1985|p=136}}</ref> The city's population nearly doubled between 1949 and 1956, and Calgary's immigrant population not only embraced the Stampede, but encouraged friends and family in their home towns to do the same.<ref name="Gray136" /> The 1950s represented the golden age of the Calgary Stampede.<ref name="Gray137">{{harvnb|Gray|1985|p=137}}</ref>
[[File:Stampede grounds entrance (18963502424).jpg|thumb|Stampede grounds, 1953]]
Attendance records were broken nearly every year in the 1950s and overall attendance increased by 200,000 from 1949 to 1959.<ref name="Gray144">{{harvnb|Gray|1985|p=144}}</ref> The growth necessitated expansion of the exhibition grounds.<ref name="Dixon43" /> The 7,500-seat [[Stampede Corral]] was completed in 1950 as the largest indoor arena in Western Canada.<ref name="Foran12">{{harvnb|Foran|2008|p=12}}</ref> It housed the [[Calgary Stampeders (ice hockey)|Calgary Stampeders]] hockey team, which was operated by the Board of Governors and won the [[Western Hockey League (1952–1974)|Western Hockey League]] championship in 1954.<ref name="Gray142">{{harvnb|Gray|1985|p=142}}</ref> Acts such as the [[Minnesota Orchestra|Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra]] and [[Louis Armstrong]] played the Corral, although the arena's poor acoustics were a frequent concern to organizers and patrons.<ref name="Gray140">{{harvnb|Gray|1985|p=140}}</ref>

Improvements were made to the grandstand and the race track was rebuilt in 1954.<ref name="Gray143">{{harvnb|Gray|1985|p=143}}</ref> The Big Four Building, named in honour of the Stampede's benefactors, opened in 1959 to serve as the city's largest exhibition hall in the summer,<ref name="Dixon42" /> and was converted into a 24-sheet [[curling]] facility each winter.<ref name="Gray143"/> The improvements failed to alleviate all the pressures growth had caused: chronic parking shortages and inability to accommodate demand for tickets to the rodeo and grandstand shows continued.<ref name="Gray143" />

Attendance continued to grow throughout the 1960s and 1970s, topping 500,000 for the first time in 1962 and reaching 654,000 in 1966. Organizers expanded the event from six days to nine in 1967 and then to ten the following year.<ref name="Dixon43" /> The Stampede exceeded one million visitors for the first time in 1976.<ref name="GuysDream" /> The park, meanwhile, continued to grow. The Round-Up Centre opened in 1979 as the new exhibition hall, and the [[Olympic Saddledome]] was completed in 1983.<ref name="Dixon44">{{harvnb|Dixon|Read|2005|p=44}}</ref> The Saddledome replaced the Corral as the city's top sporting arena, and both facilities hosted [[ice hockey at the 1988 Winter Olympics|hockey]] and [[figure skating at the 1988 Winter Olympics|figure skating]] events at the [[1988 Winter Olympics]].<ref name="Dixon44" />

Maintaining the traditional focus on agriculture and western heritage remained a priority for the Calgary Stampede as the city grew into a major financial and oil hub in Western Canada.<ref name="Dixon44" /> "Aggie Days", a program designed to introduce urban schoolchildren to agriculture was introduced in 1989 and proved immediately popular.<ref name="Dixon44" /> A ten-year expansion plan called Horizon 2000 was released in 1990 detailing plans to grow Stampede Park into a year-round destination for Calgarians;<ref name="GuysDream" /> an updated plan was released in 2004.<ref name="Dixon45">{{harvnb|Dixon|Read|2005|p=45}}</ref> The Calgary Exhibition and Stampede organization dropped the word "exhibition" from its title in 2007, and has since been known simply as the Calgary Stampede.<ref>{{harvnb|Foran|2008|p=ix}}</ref> Attendance has plateaued around 1.2 million since 2000,<ref>{{citation|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-stampede-attendance-falls-slightly-1.806251 |title=Calgary Stampede attendance falls slightly |work=[[CBC News]] |date=2009-07-13 |access-date=2010-05-19 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090717023107/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-stampede-attendance-falls-slightly-1.806251 |archive-date=July 17, 2009 }}</ref> however the Stampede set an attendance record of 1,409,371 while celebrating its centennial anniversary in 2012.<ref name="2012Attendance">{{citation |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-stampede-sets-new-attendance-record-1.1193512 |title=Calgary Stampede sets new attendance record |publisher=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]] |date=2012-07-16 |access-date=2012-07-17 |archive-date=2012-07-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717083123/http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2012/07/16/calgary-stampede-attendance-record.html |url-status=live }}</ref>