The Common

Stefan Stechuk, the hero of Henry Avenue

2010-09-01T09:45:00.008-05:00

In a column entitled "'Hobo hero' sacrifices life for others -- 1933," published Nov. 29, 1975, Edith Paterson, the Free Press' answer to the Tribune's famously eccentric local history columnist Lillian Gibbons, recalled in 1975 the "hobo hero of Henry Avenue" from a cold night in late November of 1933.

Henry Avenue between Main and Austin Street in the early 1930s was an ancillary commercial strip of Main Street, lined with nine cafes, five barber shops, three pool rooms, and other services like a laundry, drug store, and watch repair. East of Austin, Henry Avenue was a row of old modest houses and a few industrial concerns, until it reached the street ended at the Hobo Jungle along the riverbank. The little old hotels on Main Street, their bars, and the countless pool rooms, cheap cafes, and tenements on surrounding streets made the area around Henry Avenue a busy centre for the city's down-and-out men.

Early in this cold morning, before dawn, one unknown face of the time and place looked out across Henry Avenue from a doorway where he attempted to keep warm. Noticing smoke coming out from behind John's Cafe at 191 Henry, the man got up and called for a passerby to turn in a fire alarm, as he ran into the burning building and up the stairs. There he found the cafe's owner, Louis Kapusta, and his wife and six children.

Henry Avenue looking west from Martha Street, 1962. The building at 191 Henry was on the right side, approximately where the orange "S" is shown. Credit

"The transient led the family down the smoke-filled stairway to safety," Paterson wrote, "then, learning that four men were still upstairs, rushed back into the building and struggled through the choking smoke to the second floor." Finding three more lodgers, he led them to the back fire escape. Returning into the building for a 60 year-old man, he found him and was able to push him out of the room, toward the fire escape.

"But he himself could not make it. He collapsed across the bed where he died."

The body of the transient, a short, well-built young man of around 25, was "burnt beyond recognition." An unused meal voucher from a neighborhood mission was found his pocket, and from this, authorities determined the identity of the brave departed as that of Stefan Stechuk. Born in Austria, Stechuk had arrived in Winnipeg only four days earlier.

A funeral service, paid for by the City's Social Welfare Commission, was held at St. Nicholas' Church on Stella Avenue. "Twelve Candles burned beside the casket to symbolize the 12 lives he had saved." Hundreds attended the service.

Stechuk is buried at All Saint's Cemetery in West St. Paul, and for years, someone would place a wreath on his grave on the anniversary of the fire.

A bronze plaque was cast that commemorated Stefan Stechuk's bravery, and was placed in the entrance of City Hall, alongside five other plaques to remember the heroic Winnipeggers who gave their lives during the world wars, the six Winnipeg men who died in the sinking of the Titanic, and to two local scoutmasters who drowned while saving others in 1917.

These plaques disappeared when the city hall was torn down in 1961, and when Mrs. Paterson inquired at the City about them 14 years later, their whereabouts were unknown, presumably in storage somewhere. Today, their whereabouts, like the memory of Stefan Stechuk's heroism, are still forgotten.

Things are often forgotten in Winnipeg. Credit

The rise and fall of the Royal Alexandra Hotel, in pictures

2010-08-19T12:31:00.016-05:00

All images are from Peel's Prairie Provinces, the Winnipeg Tribune, the Provincial Archives of Manitoba, and the Winnipeg Building Index. Newspaper quotations from Manitobia.

***

A NEW MAMMOTH RAILWAY HOTEL

The Canadian Pacific Railway Will Build a Hostelery Commensuraate With the Import of the Road and the Dignity of Winnipeg

Mr. Whyte, in answer to inquiries, said the hotel would be of modern design and of suitable size, handsomely and comfortably finished, and fitted with every convenience." - Winnipeg Telegram, May 26, 1899

Looking west from the platform of the C.P.R. station (centre background), circa 1899. Point Douglas Avenue is on the right, and several of the hotels and "Hebrew shops" that the Royal Alexandra Hotel replaced, are in the left background. (WT)

The Main Street subway, showing the C.P.R. station on the right. The old station was demolished in 1905 in preparation for the Royal Alex. (Peel)

"The hotel that many Winnipeggers had imagined would stand just east of that much talked subway, is, therefore, still a thing of the dim and distant future as is also the new stations plans for which have been patiently watched for by the Winnipeg public." - Winnipeg Telegram, May 8, 1902

Conceptual drawing of the new Canadian Pacific station and hotel, c. 1905. (Peel)

The Royal Alex under construction, beginning to dwarf the small hotels across Main St. (Peel)

"The matter of the building of... hotel by the C.P.R. has engaged the attention of the people of Winnipeg for some years. Proposal after proposal has been considered, only to be rejected on some ground or other. In fact, the building of the proposed station and hotel has been for several seasons a standard joke with all the minstrel shows and comedians appearing on the stage in this city."
- Winnipeg Telegram, September 2, 1903

Construction site seen from the north, at the southwest corner of Main and Sutherland Avenue. (Peel)

The Main Street subway after completion of the hotel. (Peel)

The Royal Alex from Higgins Avenue, with the C.P. station on the right, c.1915. (Peel)

Looking from the north. (Peel)

An artist's rendition of the Royal Alex, based on a photograph, c. 1915. (Peel)

From Higgins Avenue, c.1930 (Peel)

The hotel's kitchen, c. 1940. (Peel)

The hotel from Main Street, c. 1950. (Peel)

Princess Elizabeth arrives at the hotel's Higgins Avenue entrance, 1951. (Peel)

A close-up view of northeast corner, c. 1962. (WBI)

The great hotel looms above an alleyway between Henry and Higgins Avenue, c. 1962. (WBI)

Entering the Higgins Avenue vestibule, c.1965. (PAM)

"Winnipeg bustled and bubbled with gaiety New Year's Eve as thousands cast aside their cares and welcomed 1944 with a whistle and a shout. At the Royal Alexandra hotel, 2,500 dancers attended the Puffin Ski club's dance, two other ballrooms were jammed and 400 attended the supper dance." - Winnipeg Tribune, January 1, 1944

Mr. and Mrs. R. J. Linton, leaving the hotel on its last day of operation, December 30, 1967. (WT)

"The Royal Alexandra Hotel, a landmark in north Winnipeg, will close its doors Dec. 31 after 61 years of service." - Winnipeg Tribune, December, 1967

The empty hotel, seen from Main Street, circa 1970. (WBI)

A security guard makes his rounds, c. 1971. (WT)

"Some furniture from public rooms and suites has already been removed for use in other CP hotels; the remainder will be offered for sale to the public by Atlas Wrecking." - Winnipeg Tribune, March 18, 1971

Deconstruction site, demolition crews at work, October, 1971. (WT)

"Construction on the new Canadian Pacific hotel, so well named "The Royal Alexandra," is now far advanced. Anyone who can elude the vigilance of the guards and get a glance at the interior will see that Winnipeg is going to have a magnificant hotel which will, indeed be an ornament to the city...

The site of the Royal Alex, as it looks today, minus the landscaping and lack of litter and intoxicated persons, c.1975. (WT)

"...A section of the city which is rapidly improving and is fast losing its old character is the north end of Main street between the city hall and the C.P.R." - Telegram, April 28, 1906

Robert Macdonald

2010-08-17T15:21:00.012-05:00

Robert Macdonald (1829-1913)

Neil Macdonald was born in 1794, on the island of Islay off the west coast of Scotland. In 1813, he arrived at Red River in the employment of the Hudson's Bay Company, two years before Fort Douglas was built on the south banks of Point Douglas, and three before Governor Semple and twenty men from the Selkirk settlement were killed at Seven Oaks.

After several years with the Company, the young Neil Macdonald moved back to Scotland, and later, in 1825, sailed aboard an expedition to the Canadian Arctic led by the fated Sir John Franklin. Two years later, he returned to Red River and lived there until his death in 1871. At Red River, he married Ann Logan, a daughter of Robert Logan and Mary Sauteuse (?-1838), a Saulteaux Indian. The Macdonald's farmed twenty acres on Point Douglas, a short distance to the northeast of Robert Logan's farm house and mill that stood on the site of Fort Douglas.

Robert Logan (1773 - 1866), grandfather of Robert Macdonald and early Point Douglas settler. Credit

Robert Logan was by 1827 a respected member of Red River society, having been the interim governor of the Selkirk settlement in the 1810s, and in '25 had purchased from the Lord Selkirk estate Fort Douglas, its buildings and wind mill, where he established his homestead. (The wooden fort was destroyed in the great flood of 1826, but the windmill was repaired and used successfully by Logan until the early 1860s.) The son of Robert Logan sr., a Jamaican plantation owner, and Anne Stitcher, a "free mulato," Robert was was of mixed ancestry, and was fluent in both French and English.

Advertisement in The Nor'wester for assorted bolts and screws from Robert Logan's old mill. Credit

The eldest son of Neil and Ann was Robert Macdonald, born in 1829. He was educated at St. John's Parish School, which was where St. John's Park is today, and worked on the family farm on Point Douglas. He later completed his studies in divinity at St. John's Collegiate under The Bishop Anderson.

Robert Macdonald moved to the north from Red River to be a missionary for the Anglican Church, first to communities on the Winnipeg River, then far into the northwest, along what is now the Alaska-Northwest Territory border, among the Gwitch'in people. He would remain there for more than forty years.

He was considered one of the more effective Anglican missionaries in the Canadian North, owing to his genuine respect of the Aboriginal people he worked and lived with, and his long-serving tenure. He created a written alphabet for the Gwitch'in language, and translating the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and many hymns. Macdonald also researched Gwitch'in spiritual concepts, to make Anglican Christianity more easy to conceptualize for the Gwitch'in people. Unlike most other Christian missions in the north, the Gwitch'in people that Macdonald lived among were able to conduct their own services in their languages. As a result of Macdonald's work, there has historically been a higher than average level of literacy among the Gwich'in people, and the modern written language of the Gwitch'ins, called Tukudh, or Takudh, is still based on the translating work Macdonald did in the 19th century.

While in the Northwest, Macdonald married a Gwitch'in woman named Julia Kutug, and together they had nine children.

In spite of Macdonald's many years of work for the Church, Macdonald lived in relative poverty and hardship, even into his old age. Considered a "native" minister, Macdonald, like most aboriginal ministers, was paid between a third to half what a British Anglican minister would earn, and was not paid directly, but through credit to the accounts of English ministers. This existed in spite of the petitions of The Bishop of Rupertland, Robert Machray, to reform this unfair system. Even after rising to the position of Archdeacon, Macdonald continued to be paid the same salary, and throughout his life in the north, his family needed to supplement their income with subsistence hunting.

In the winter of 1900, the 69 year-old Macdonald noted in his journal that his wife Julia went on a rabbit-snaring trip, "but to no purpose I fear... Opened a bag of flour, another besides remaining. Our stock of provisions runs low. Only two meals a day." Trading with the Gwitch'ins to survive raised the ire of the H.B.Co., eager to protect their monopoly on trade in the north.

Advertisement in The Nor'wester listing the Macdonald farm on Point Douglas. It is likely that W.G. Fonseca, who built his estate in the vicinity in the early 1860s, purchased the farm

Fire Insurance Map from 1905 showing 57 Macdonald, the residence of Robert Macdonald from 1904 until his death in 1913

Robert retired from his work in the north in 1904, and with Julia and their children, moved to Winnipeg. They resided at 57 Macdonald Avenue, on what was the Macdonald farm he grew up on in the 1830s and '40s, and now was at the centre of a rapidly-growing city. Three of the Macdonald children died in those first years in Winnipeg, and Robert himself died in 1913.

The house in which Macdonald lived his last days, on the street that bears his family name, is buried under the Disraeli freeway.

***
The article Archdeacon Robert McDonald and Gwich'in Literacy, by Patrick Moore (published in Anthropological Linguistics (2007, vol. 49, no1, pp. 27-53) provided much of the information for this post

The Juke Box Murder

2010-08-16T09:11:00.017-05:00

The elder statesman of Winnipeg journalism is a North End boy named Val Werier, who continues to write very occasional opinion columns for the Free Press. Werier has written columns on city affairs for some 45 years, first in the Tribune, then the FP), a tireless, often lone voice against the rising misanthropic destruction of the city's natural and built environment. Like Lewis Mumford, Werier wrote that cities exist first as a place for people, not cars or the egos of planners. Decades before Bar Italia, Werier advocated for sidewalk cafes as a way to add some life to Winnipeg streets.

But Werier's career in journalism goes back further: an incredible 72 years, to 1938, when Val Werier first began submitting news items to the Tribune. He worked as a reporter for the paper until 1942, when he served with the R.C.A.F. for the remainder of the war in Europe. A testament to his love for the city's public realm, Werier made a name for himself early on by being out and about and happening to come across the news in progress.

Val Werier on the job, c.1945. Credit

One such story was the Juke Box Murder that occurred in the summer of 1941, a story that Werier got wind of while walking down the street from the city's police station on Rupert Avenue East just as the police van pulled up with the two murder suspects. The scoop was his, and the Tribune gave him the front page and the byline (a rare honor for reporters in those days).

The body is carried out of the Row Bow Coney Island, 196 Smith St. Credit

The murder of a railway porter named Victor H. Bolden, Werier crafted into a gritty, low-class film noir. "While the crazy ragtime tunes pounded out of a juke box in a Smith st. snack shop Tuesday evening," Werier's lead began, "Victor H. Bolden, a colored railway porter, was stabbed to death through the chest with a knife as he was eating a steak."

The shop, the Rain-Bow Coney Island, was a small enterprise a couple doors south of St. Mary Avenue, owned by Fred Ball. Bolden, who worked for the CNR and lived a few blocks away on Main near Graham Avenue, was 48.

Victor H. Bolden: stabbed in the heart with a steak knife. Credit

Bolden's death occurred around 7:30 p.m. Bolden came in to the restaurant a half hour before with a male and female companion who he had been drinking with earlier that evening.

According to Mrs. Ball, wife of the shop's proprietor who saw it happen, "Bolden ordered a steak. The woman with him in the booth asked the Negro for a part of his steak. Then she called to Mrs. ball: 'Bring me a steak knife, will you please.'" She didn't, so the young woman came in an grabbed one herself. One waitress told police that if there was an argument, she could not hear it over the jukebox playing. She called the police, having to reach over the body of Victor Bolden, to the shop's telephone located in the booth where the man's body sat slumped over. Shaking she dropped four nickels before successfully entering one in the phone and reaching the police.

Bolden's companions, who fled the Rain Bow immediately after the murder, were Roger Lepine and Alice Dufault. Both were apprehended that night, and appeared in police court the next morning. Dufault was found in her room at 213 Donald; Lepine, between two houses near the Rain Bow.

The testimony of Mrs. Ball and a waitress named Mary McKay led to the murder charge being dropped against Lepine, while "Big Alice" Dufault (AKA: Alice Dillen, Alice Ducharme) was sentenced to ten years in prison for manslaughter.

"Big Alice" Dufault: Bolden's killer. Credit

In 1946, the Rain Bow operated as Hudson's Cafe. In 1951, the year Dufault was scheduled to be released from prison, it was called the New Bowes. The original South End, the neighborhood south of Portage Avenue was built up in the 1880s and '90s as a more fashionable residential alternative to Point Douglas and central Winnipeg. But it was clear that by the mid-20th century, the district, particularly north of Broadway, had fallen quite out of vogue. Mostly a dense residential neighborhood, with a number of small businesses like the Rain Bow, in the postwar years this character was almost entirely obliterated as roads were widened, and new developments such as residential high-rises, the Canada Post headquarters, Convention Centre, and the Centennial Library were built, and surface parking lots abounded.

The back of 196 Smith Street in its last days, circa 1966, surveying the neighborhood's destiny of parking lots and mega-scaled development. Credit

In 1970, the block where poor Victor H. Bolden met his end in the Rain Bow Coney Island, became the site of the Place Louis Riel, a highrise hotel. A small grocery store operates in the hotel's ground floor on the corner of Smith and St. Mary Avenue today.

Moses and Manly Finkelstein

2010-08-13T23:31:00.000-05:00

Moses Finkelstein c.1906. Credit

When he was a boy, Moses Finkelstein arrived in Winnipeg of 1882 with his family. Moses went into business, and at 32, became the city's first Jewish aldermen. In 1911, Moses lived at number 111 Henry Avenue, in the Fonseca Terrace built by early Point Douglas investor, William G. Fonseca. Residing there were his wife Sarah's parents, Isaac and Dora Rosen, and Moses and Sarah's five children: Edyth, Manly, Kenneth, Noel, and Pearl. As well, a 65-year old domestic, Mary Prutzecha, lived with the family.

Fonseca Terrace. The Finkelstein's lived at number 111, the door on right

Moses' son Manly Finkelstein was born in 1898, and became a physician and Captain of the Canadian Medical Corps during World War II. He married Freda Rosner, a sister of Saidye Rosner, who married a man named Samuel Bronfman, who managed the Bell Hotel.

In 1949, Manly died while in Montreal for the wedding of his niece, Saidye and Samuel's daughter Phyllis, who was marrying the French Baron Jean Lambert. Though the marriage would last only four years, Phyllis kept the name Lambert, and become a leading figure in Canadian architecture and heritage preservation. In the 1950s she was involved in building a landmark of Modern Architecture, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building, located in Midtown Manhattan.

Phyllis Lambert, niece of Manly and Freda Finkelstein, c.1960s

The Seagram Building, Park Ave., Manhattan

The sky-scraper

2010-08-12T14:40:00.009-05:00

In the summer of 1907, the excitement surrounding the growth of the city of Winnipeg was heightened by news that local developer A.M. Fraser would construct a 14-storey office building on the east side of Main Street, between McDermot and Bannatyne. Designed by a 37 year-old Chicago-schooler, John D. Atchison, the new building would exceed the Union Bank tower by about 50 feet. It would be the "largest and finest" building in the city, and "in fact one of the very finest on the continent."

Architectural rendering of a new office tower to be built on the east side of Main St. between McDermot and Bannatyne. Credit

Little is known about A.M. Fraser, except that in 1906 he had built a five-story office building at the northeast corner of Logan and Main, originally called the Concordia, and later the Bon-Accord Block. A substantial structure relative to the older, smaller buildings around it, the Bon-Accord, along with the Royal Alexandra Hotel two blocks north, represented what many citizens hoped would be a physical improvement on north Main. Like other office buildings in the neighborhood, the Bon-Accord struggled to find office tenants in the '10s and '20s, and converted some units to residential. A fire in 1945 led the owners to dismantle all but the ground floor. Today, this remaining portion of the Bon-Accord is the home of a popular and long-time Main Street enterprise, Mitchell's Fabrics.

The Concordia/Bon-Accord Block, nearing completion in 1906. Credit

East side of Main St., c.1918, showing the Bon-Accord Block on the right

Fraser seems to have owned land behind the Bon-Accord on Logan Avenue in preparation for his building, since in January of '06, the Telegram reported that he had donated this "valuable site," which measured 50' x 99' to the Men's Own of Winnipeg, a social agency aimed at the care and conversion of impoverished men of the city, of which Fraser was a board member. On this site the Men's Own would construct a five-story mission in 1908. The mission was demolished in the early 1990s.

When Fraser approached the City of Winnipeg about constructing a 14-storey office further south on Main, the City's Board of Control opposed the construction, saying that it was too tall--in spite of the building's approval by the City's Water, Fire and Light Committee. A testament to the high property values on that portion of Main at the time, Fraser told the Telegram that "it would not pay him to erect a smaller building."

A Winnipeg by-law created mandated that any building exceeding 120' would need to be approved by the City. Since Fraser's planned building surpassed this height by about 80, he went to City Hall for approval.

The development was "heartily endorsed" by the Winnipeg Real Estate Exchange, who also opposed the height restriction by-law in general, "provided that proper fire extinguishing apparatus and water service is installed throughout the buildings."

Mayor J.H. Ashdown, who had since 1868 watched the city go from a few small wood building dotting Main, seemed to feel that the business district should grow upward no further: "My own opinion has been that the Merchants [sic] bank is the utmost height that should be allowed," he said. "There is plenty of land and no occasion for such high buildings." The Merchant's Bank that Ashdown referred to, at the corner of Main and Lombard, was only 110' tall.

View of Main Street, c.1913, showing where A.M. Fraser's proposed building would have been built, and how tall it would have been relative to surrounding buidlings. Credit

The Winnipeg Telegram printed an editorial in favor of the new building, and skyscrapers in general, suggesting that the the Board of Control was senselessly meddling in the path of the city's progress:

"Cities of consequence on this continent have buildings in their business centres that are termed in the humorously descriptive phraseology of the people, "sky-scrapers."

[...]

"The Board of Control of Winnipeg in reporting against the granting of a permit for a sky-scraper is flying against the spirit of the business world of modern cities, which rightly or wrongly have a tendency to concentration. It is opposed to an enterprise which is an inspiration of the economic idea of the age.

[...]

"In an intelligent community the solution of the question of the height of a building might generally be left to the people who building them, and the people who will seek to occupy them.

"It is unreasonable to believe that a capitalist, who will erect an expensive building of a class that is loosely accused of being insanitary, dangerous and with social disadvantages repugnant to the popular taste, does not know the reasonableness of his investment.

"The stream does not rise higher than its source, and a sky-scraper will not rise one storey higher than the tastes, desires and demands of the people of an intelligent and progressive city."

A permit was eventually issued to Fraser, and in mid-July, the Telegram reported that the work was set to begin in two weeks.

Canadian Wheat Pool Building, now the Canadian Wheat Board headquarters, built in 1928. Credit

In the end, for reasons unknown at this time, Fraser never did construct the building, and the old frame buildings on the site stood for some years more, until they were torn down and in 1928 replaced by the Wheat Pool built, an eight-storey Deco-inspired edifice. By then, economic conditions on Main Street had changed considerably: the Wheat Pool was one of the few new tall office buildings constructed in Winnipeg between 1917 and 1965. Had Fraser's skyscraper been built, it would have been Winnipeg's tallest downtown office building from its completion until the Royal Bank building was built at the corner of Portage and Fort St in the mid-'60s.

Norquay Park, 1924

2010-08-11T08:58:00.005-05:00

Norquay Park shown on a 1964 map of Winnipeg. Credit

"but the every-day park is the small community park where the mother can send the smaller children in care of the older ones while the morning work is being attended to and in the afternoon she may join them and find real comfort and pleasure doing some useful work in a shady abor and watching the children play. This is what St. John's, Norquay, St. James [Vimy Ridge], Crescentwood and all our community parks mean to the children who cannot perhaps get to Assiniboine or Kildonan parks more than once a month and perhaps not more than once a season."

"Who has visited Weston, King Edward, Elmwood or Norquay parks on a real hot day in summer and watched the children in the wading pool but has wished that the hand of time might be turned backward that they themselves might play and splash in the water and give expression to innocent and carefree laughter such as only children can indulge in."

Text and images from A Souvenir of Winnipeg's Jubilee, 1874-1924, published by the Civic Social and Athletic Association, 1924

The Bungalow

2010-08-06T14:01:00.010-05:00

As a new city began to grow at The Forks in the 1870s, many houses were built and converted to boarding houses for the many young men arriving from the east. One of these houses stood on the banks of the Red River at the foot of George Street. For more than a decade, the house, known as The Bungalow in the papers and the Henderson Directories, was home to a string of bachelors; mostly Anglican, Conservative newly arrived Ontario or British-born. A number of these occupants of The Bungalow would became notable figures in the city business, and it was from this house that two house-mates, cousins George and John Galt, founded the Winnipeg Rowing Club in 1881.

Fire insurance map from 1905, showing The Bungalow facing away from George Avenue, and toward the Red River

The Bungalow was built in the summer of 1875 by a 23 year-old Englishman named Arthur Eden. Arriving in Winnipeg, Eden went into the wholesale business with an early house-mate of The Bungalow, Frederick Stobart.

The Bungalow was situated on the north side of Logan's Creek, which ran from the Red River northwesterly to the Fonseca Estate. On the opposite side of the creek was the Logan house, a venerable estate in terms of the Red River settlement, the Logans had been there since 1825, when Robert Logan purchased the site of Fort Douglas from the estate of Lord Selkirk. In 1817, Chief Peguis buried the dead Selkirk Settlers after the Battle of Seven Oaks. According to some early accounts, they were buried on the banks of the creek opposite Fort Douglas, making it near the spot where Eden built his Bungalow.

Winnipeg east of Main, 1874. The Bungalow was built on the south side of George and northeast of the creek. Credit

In July, while the house was being constructed, workers digging a drain along George Avenue uncovered "a large collection of old weapons and human bones," the Nor'wester saying that they were believed to belong to "some of Governor Simple's [sic] party... killed early in this century." Remarkably, this discovery possibly related to a major event in the early settlement did not seem to attract more attention.

News item in the Nor'wester, July 19, 1875. Credit

Arthur Eden, the young bachelor who built the house in 1875, remained a resident there until 1882, when he married and moved to a house he built that year on Armstrong's Point (the house, 147 Eastgate, is still standing today). Eden and his wife moved to England in 1894.

Caricature of George Galt, 1907. Credit

In 1881, two new house-mates of The Bungalow, George and John Galt, built a rowing boat and began taking it out on the Red River. Two years later, they formally incorporated the Winnipeg Rowing Club, today one of the oldest sporting organizations in Western Canada. After incorporation in '83, The boat and club houses were built at The Forks, but the residents of The Bungalow maintained a rowing crew, competing against crews from the Hudson's Bay Co., the Monastery, Bank of Montreal.

George Galt would eventually move to Wellington Crescent, his cousin John to Roslyn Road. Another notable resident was the banker Frank L. Patton, who later lived on Wellington Crescent. The Bungalow appears to have ceased functioning as a boarding house for bachelors by 1889, and the house had been demolished by 1932. Today the site of the house is a vacant lot facing Waterfront Drive. Surrounding it, where the Logan's house, Fort Dougals, and the creek where Peguis was said to bury the dead from Seven Oaks once were, is a forgotten corner of the central city, scattered with warehouses and a few remaining residential homes.

Ringleaders for 99 years

2010-08-03T10:18:00.013-05:00

Through much of the 20th century, Euclid Avenue has operated as something of a minor neighborhood main street. As many as 20 small businesses operated on Euclid at mid-century, with a number of others on other nearby streets. This concentration of local commerce began to fade in the 1950s as neighborhood de-population and automobile ownership and use began to rise, most dramatically between 1965 and '75, when the number of stores on Euclid shrank from 13 to six, and between '85 and '95, when it went from five to one. That one remaining store, Metro Meats at 121 Euclid Avenue at the corner of Grove St., has its beginnings in 1911--a year when streetcar tracks ran down a Euclid Avenue paved in gravel and lined with wood plank sidewalks. It began business before the Fort Garry Hotel was built on Broadway, World War I broke out, before Al Jolson exploded onto the American music charts, and before the General Strike brutally riveted the suddenly no longer young city of Winnipeg.

Simon Matas was born in 1881 and came to Canada around 1905. In 1907, he worked as a butcher at Sam Denaburg's Grocery and Butcher shop, in a building at 80 Euclid at the corner of Argyle St. Simon, along with Denaburg's family, lived upstairs. In 1908 or '09, Simon and his brother Matthew operated a grocery and butcher store in the space at 80 Euclid, and in 1911 the brothers constructed an addition to a large house at 121 Euclid Avenue (built in the 1890s), and relocated their business there.

121 Euclid Avenue, 1905, showing the house prior to the Matas brothers' commercial addition

121 Euclid Ave. circa 1955

The Henderson Directory for 1916 notes that the Matas' operated a grocery store and pool room at 121 Euclid, as well as rented space to a barber named Skovoda--something hard to imagine for any shopper that has navigated the small space in the present store. By 1925, the business was purely meat and groceries. Matthew Matas would eventually leave Winnipeg, but Simon would own and operate the business for more than 40 years. During that time, Simon and his wife Annie raised six children in the house: John, Harry, Roy, Max, Edna and Mary. Harry who became a physician, and Roy would be called to the bar in 1946, and would later serve as a judge.

By 1956, Annie Matas had passed away, and Simon retired from the store. Simon moved in with Harry and his family (which included a son named David, who was studying law at the U of M) at 560 Waterloo St. in River Heights. Simon's son Max operated a wholesale meat warehouse in St. Boniface. In 1968, Simon was living in the Sharon Home at 146 Magnus Ave., not far from the street where he first lived and went into business more than 60 years earlier. By 1975, he had passed away.

The Hon. Roy Matas (centre) with his wife Ruth (far right), and Israel and Barbara Asper, 1973, the year Roy was appointed to the Court of Appeal

After the Matas' sold the business at 121 Euclid, it was operated under the name Euclid Meat Market, and in 1961, the name was changed to Metro Meats, under the proprietorship of William Stolar, who lived with his wife Johanna and their son Edgar at 121 until the early 1980s, when Metro Meats was purchased by its current owner, Janina Sklczypiec.

Metro Meats, as it looked in 1978. Credit

In 2010, after 99 years as the site of a grocery and butcher store, and only owned by three different families over that period, Metro Meats serves the neighborhood as a grocery store, and the wider region as one of the city's underrated old country butcher shop. Visiting the small store, one will often wait in line behind both an elderly suburbanite buying rings of genuine Winnipeg-style kulbassa to be packaged and sent to their children in Vancouver or the U.S., and young neighborhood kids buying five cent candies. Long may the "ringleaders of Kulbassa" continue to operate this important neighborhood institution at 121 Euclid.

Don Derigo Nojada Gomez da Silva Fonseca (1823-1905)

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W.G. Fonseca. Credit

Born in St. Croix in the West Indies, Don Derigo Nojada Gomez da Silva Fonseca was reportedly a cousin of a President of Brazil, Deradora d Silva Fonseca. In 1840, he left St. Croix for New York City (then a city of 310,000 souls living below 14th Street) where he received business training as an apprentice, and shortened his name to William Gomez. By 1850, he was doing business in St. Paul, at the time an isolated town in Minnesota Territory experiencing a boom. After nine years there, he traveled to the Red River settlement with a caravan of Red River Carts, arriving in the spring of 1860, crossing the river and landing at what would later be the foot of Lombard street.

Spending his first night in the boat on the western banks of the river, Fonseca went ashore, meeting Andrew McDermot, then the most prosperous free traders at River. Fonseca first rented a log house near Redwood, near the present Redwood Bridge, where he sold the goods he had brought with him from St. Paul. With that money, he purchased the lot in Point Douglas, along a street that Fonseca would lay out and call Maple, after the trees he planted there. The property would be subdivided over the years to make way for new developments, but much of the grounds around the house, known as Maple Place, would remain surrounded by trees and gardens.

Maple Place and its environs, 1905. The Fonseca residence is seen in the centre

Later that year, Fonseca went into business with another recent arrival from the U.S., Edmund Lorenzo Barber. In 1861 he opened a store with William Logan, which was "situated near the Old Mill" on the Logan estate, not far from Maple Place.

Fonseca Terrace. Built on the south side of the Fonseca estate at 99-111 Henry Avenue circa 1872--perhaps the first "multi-family dwelling" built in the city. Fonseca can be seen standing on the sidewalk in the centre

In 1869, Fonseca was arrested and detained for two days by Riel when shipping goods from St. Paul to Red River, but was released on account of his American citizenship.

In addition to his business ventures, Fonseca was intensely involved in city affairs, serving six terms as Alderman, a school trustee, as well as serving on the Vestry of St. John's Cathedral for 36 years and numerous other committees. By 1871, Fonseca had built a new house for his young family on the east side of Maple Street, and donated the old log house across the road to the newly-created Winnipeg School Division. It was used as the first public school in the West. Fonseca also donated land to the Manitoba College, which opened at the corner of Main and Henry Avenue in 1874.

Invitation to dinner party at Maple Place, August 26, 1904

The funeral for William Fonseca took place at 3:00 in the afternoon of April 25, 1905, proceeding from the family home on Maple, to a service at Christ Church located at Princess and Higgins Avenue, then up to St. John's church yard, where Fonseca was buried in a graveside ceremony conducted by The Archbishop Matheson. The service was well attended, with many of Fonseca's contemporaries in attendance: Lady Schultz, E.L. Drewry, and the Bannatyne's. Sir Daniel MacMillan, Sheriff Inkster, James Ashdown, Edmund Barber, Judge Walker, Dr. O'Donnell, and J.D. Moore were the pallbearers.

By 1911, the Fonseca's had moved from Maple Street. Mrs. Margaret Fonseca lived at 602 Wardlaw with her brother John Logan. A son, Benjamin, lived at the family's Wolseley Hotel, and other siblings lived in different houses on River Avenue. By 1928, the old family home, its maple, plum, and crab apple trees cleared away, and the site became a trucking yard.

Since the area that Fonseca lived and invested in was subject to decades of decline and urban renewal projects, the only remaining legacy of the pioneering Point Douglas entrepreneur is the Mount Royal Hotel at 186 Higgins Avenue, which Fonseca and his sons built in 1904.

The Wolseley Hotel on Higgins Avenue, can be seen on the left. Across the street is the imposing Royal Alexandra Hotel. Credit

Mount Royal Hotel, built by W.G. Fonseca in 1904. Credit

Lily Street, 1911

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Lily Street from Alexander to Henry, as it appeared on the 1905 Winnipeg Fire Insurance Map. Click to enlarge

Lily, the short street in south Point Douglas that extended from Pacific Avenue up to Henry, was laid out early in the 1870s. By 1911, it was entirely residential, made up mostly by detached frame houses, with two apartment blocks at the street's north end. While south Point Douglas in 1911 was one of the city's most densely-populated districts, made up largely of new immigrants, Lily Street was home to a number of the city's Jewish merchant and professional classes: Zimmerman, Ripstein, Rosenblat, Margolese, Moscovitz, Bronfman.

William Zimmerman lived in a modest wood frame house at 23 Lily. Arriving in Winnipeg with his family at the age of 12 in 1882, the Zimmerman's spent their first summer in Winnipeg as most immigrants in those early days did: living in the shantytown that existed where the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is under construction today. Within five years, the family were able to open a general store at 669 Main St. In 1913, William replaced the old store with a three-storey building, which still stands at this location.

Drawing of William Zimmerman's new block at 669 Main, designed by Max Blankstein, 1913. Credit

At 39 Lily, Dr. Oscar Margolese came to Winnipeg from Eastern Canada in 1906, and in 1911 his offices were at his residence. Dr. Margolese specialized in urology, and practiced until at least 1919. He was a founding member of the B’nai B’rith Lodge in 1911.

Joseph Fahey moved to 46 Lily in 1882, and would remain there until 1933. He was a prominent union supporter in the early 20th century, and the Arlington Hotel which he managed was known as "union headquarters" early in the century. (The Arlington was located on Market St. across from City Hall.) Joseph and his wife Ella raised three sons, all of whom served in the First World War. Two of these boys, 29 year-old Ernest, and 22 year-old Jack, were killed in action in 1918.

Daniel McDonald lived in a brick house at 45 Lily. Retired as Western manager of the Confederation Life Co., the 77 year-old McDonald by 1911 would have been a vestige of the Anglo-Celt executive class in Point Douglas.

The house at 51 Lily had been constructed circa 1895 by Alexander Black, whose lumber business was located a few blocks east on Gomez St. By 1911, the house was occupied by Nathan Rosenblat, who operated a hardware and clothing store at 651 Main, in what is now the Man-Win Hotel.

51 Lily circa 1962. Demolished in 1970. Credit

At 60 Lily, which looked down George Avenue to the river, lived Yechiel and Mindel Bronfman, with three of their children: Laura, Allen, and Rosia. Two other sons lived at two Main Street hotels that managed: Harry at the Patricia, and Samuel almost directly across the street at the Bell. In the 1920s, the Bronfman family would move to Montreal, where they built the Seagram's distillery empire.

In 1927, the block between Alexander and Robert (Galt) Avenues was bought up by the T. Eaton Co., including the Zimmerman residence, where they built a large two-storey warehouse that remains there today. William Zimmerman moved to an apartment on Central Park, where he lived until his death in 1946.

William Zimmerman, n.d.

On December 29, 1944, a 77 year-old man was crushed between a truck and the wall of the warehouse at 181 Bannatyne Ave. The driver of the truck was 61 year-old George Bell, an express clerk with the CPR, who lived with his wife Constance at #16-76 Lily, The Exeter Block. Less than a year later, in September, '45, he Tribune reported that the fire was caused by a cigarette being butted out on the couch, and that a drunk George was rescued by the caretaker with some difficulty, believing his wife was still inside. George died from his injuries at the hospital several days later.

South Point Douglas, circa 1910. This view shows Henry Avenue, with Martha St. on the right. The trees and houses of Lily St. can be seen in the background. The rear of the Exeter Block is shown on the left. Credit

In the early 1960s, almost all of Lily between Logan and Henry was demolished to make way for the connecting 'freeway' between the Disraeli Bridge and Main Street, and the new CPR office building on Henry (now the Manitoba Metis Federation headquarters). The new roadway cut diagonally across the Fahey property, and where the Bronfman house stood at 60 Lily became a parking lot for the CPR building.

Daniel McDonald house at 45 Lily, c.2000. Credit

The ornate late-Victorian Alexander Black house, home to Nathan Rosenblat in 1911, was demolished in 1970 in spite of the protest of a handful of architecture students and local history buffs. Fittingly, an auto garage was built there in 1980. Today, only two houses remain on Lily Street: the Daniel McDonald residence, which appears to be well maintained, and a duplex at numbers 55-57, which appears to be one of the last of the South Point Douglas flophouses.

137 years at Main and Logan

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Since 1873, there has been a hotel operating at the south-east corner of Main and Logan Avenue. First established as the Eureka House, it was later known as the California, the Ottawa, the White Rose, and by 1900, the Occidental Hotel. Rechristened the the New Occidental sometime in the mid-20th century, it is now officially known as the Red Road Lodge.

The Eureka Hotel was built at this corner by Alexander Logan, heir of the Logan family estate that encompassed everything between Henry and Alexander Avenue before the family subdivided and sold off much of it in the 1870s and early '80s. Next door to the Eureka in 1873 was the Point Douglas House, operated by Paul Heiminck, which kept in stock "Guinness' Porter, Bass' Ale, Carte d'or Champagne," as well as liquors, cigars, sardines, lobsters, oysters, pickles, "and everything else necessary for a lunch."

Ad for Eureka House in the Manitoba Free Press, January 17, 1874.

Another ad placed in the Nor'wester (the first newspaper in the West when it began publishing in 1859, it was briefly resurrected in 1874 under the ownership of E.L. Barber, advertised that the Eureka House's proprietor Joseph Devlin had enlarged the building, so that "travellers and the public generally" could be entertained "in first class-style." Board was available by the week, with or without lodging, and the hotel's stables were "large and commodious," Devlin keeping "constantly on hand the best of hay & feed."

In 1882, the hotel operated under the name California, and according to a profile on the city's hotels in the Winnipeg Sun in September '82, the California was a wooden structure with 12 bedrooms, a dining room, and bar.

At some point between the mid 1880s and the early 1890s the hotel was either upgraded or totally rebuilt. It is likely that it was rebuilt, since the Sun claims the building was wooden, while the fire insurance map from 1905 shows the hotel was of brick construction.

West side of Main at Logan Avenue, 1892. Credit

Ad in the Winnipeg Telegram for a Christmas dinner, December 24, 1904. Credit

In the 1890s, the hotel, by then called the White Rose, was purchased by a Jewish merchant named David Ripstein. Born in Russia, Ripstein came to Winnipeg in 1881, and was a wholesale liquor dealer prior to purchasing the White Rose, changing the name to the Occidental Hotel in 1894--the year Alexander Logan, scion of the old Red River family, died. At the turn of the century, Ripstein frequently found himself in court for various (usually liquor-related) offences--a common occurrence for small businessmen in an age of strict liquor sales and Lord's Day laws. He also served as President of Shaary Zedek Synagogue, then located at the corner of King Street and Henry Avenue.

Ad placed in the Nor'wester, August 13, 1895. Credit

In 1903, Ripstein built a three-storey addition at the back of the Occidental on Logan Avenue, and three years later built an adjacent building, called the Ripstein Block, at the corner of Logan and Martha Street. It was here, at #1-48 Martha Street, where Ripstein lived in 1911 with his wife Mary, his mother-in-law Annie Shapra, his two year-old grandson Clarence Ripstein, and a domestic servant named Sophie Magnason.

Drawing of the Ripstein Block, which appeared in the Winnipeg Telegram in April, 1906. Credit

Fire Insurance Map from 1905 showing the Occidental Hotel, with the first of David Ripstein's Logan Avenue additions shown. The small wooden buildings on the opposite side of Logan can be seen in the 1892 photo above. They would be replaced the following year by the five-storey Bon-Accord Block, designed by the architect A.M. Fraser.

The Ripstein Block and Occidental Hotel, seen from Logan Avenue, 1918. Credit

Entrance to the hotel, 1918. Credit

Given its relative old age and outdated floor plan, the Occidental by 1914 would certainly not have had the appeal of larger, newer hostileries on Main such as the Royal Alexandra, the McLaren, and even the Bell, to say nothing of the Marlborough, St. Regis, and other more uptown establishments. It is likely that the Occidental's decline in status began long before 1945, the year that the hotel advertised daily rates of $1.00 (about $13.00 today). But as transportation patterns began moving away from railways and Main Street at a rapid pace after World War II, the Occidental began to assume something of a rough character. When one Main Street old-timer was asked which was the roughest hotel on the strip in the early 1960s, he responded without delay: "the Occidental. Maybe the Brunswick [Main and Rupert], too. But the Occidental was bad."

The "new" Occidental Hotel, circa 1980, a time when it was famously the epicentre of Main Street's roughest and wildest years between 1965 and 1999. Credit

In the early years of this century, the Occidental was purchased by Richard Walls who, much to the chargrin of the socially responsible Manitoba Liquor Control Commission and the community-building Manitoba Lotteries Corp., shut down the bar and removed its VLTs. Today, it operates essentially as a quiet and seemingly well-run hotel for long-term tenants upstairs, with space on the ground floor used by different organizations. The most notable of these is The Tallest Poppy restaurant, a popular eating spot which was opened by Point Douglas entrepreneur Talia Syrie in 2006.

Ratepayers vs. The Company

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In 1902, as settlement in Western Canada continued to expand dramatically, traffic on the Canadian Pacific Railway's main line through Point Douglas continued to increase. Since 1881, the CP's railroad had run down Point Douglas Avenue, a public road, but over the years, train traffic increased, more tracks were laid, and numerous spur tracks ran off the main line to connect to the district's various industrial and wholesaling concerns.

As traffic on the mainline grew, so was the city. New residential neighborhoods sprouted further and further from the central core. For citizens who traveled by streetcar, a fare from the North End to downtown involved getting off at one side of the CPR on Main, walking to the other side, and catching another streetcar. That is of course if trains were blocking Main Street.

Canadian Pacific Railway Station, showing Point Douglas Avenue on the right, with Main Street in the background, 1900.

For residents in the north-east section of Point Douglas, the isolation that the busy CPR mainline caused was much worse. Sutherland Avenue extended east only as far as Disraeli Street, and residents east of Disraeli were forced to use Point Douglas Avenue to access points westward, either by walking along it, or crossing it to Higgins Avenue.

"Has the city council given the street over entirely to the CPR?" an "interested ratepayer" wrote to the Winnipeg Telegram.
There was no meaningful way to access the rest of the city without accessing Point Douglas Avenue. Children living north of the tracks, who could not attend the crowded Norquay School on Euclid, would daily cross the mainline at McFarlane to attend Argyle School. The at-grade crossing at McFarlane Street had five tracks to cross, and "almost constantly there are cars standing on the Ogilvie [Flour Mill] switches," making it extremely dangerous to cross, particularly for young children, who "are apt to be heedless." People living here, the writer concluded, "are practically cut off from the protection and privileges enjoyed by the rest of the city."

In April, The Voice reported that John Wallace addressed a meeting of the Labor Party regarding the "heap of trouble that is stewing at a very persistent rate in the hearts of Point Douglas residents." Wallace called for Sutherland to be extended from Main Street to the Louise Bridge, and at no increased property tax rates for nearby residents, since their "only outlet," Point Douglas Avenue, had become gradually overtaken by the CPR without any compensation.

Point Douglas circa 1900 showing Sutherland Avenue ending at Disraeli St. Credit

In 1903, the C.P.R. began to construct a subway at Main Street under Point Douglas Avenue, which was opened to the public by November of 1904. The Company also promised to construct another further east.

Earlier that year, E.F. Hutchings, the wealthy saddle merchant and financier late of 47 Martha Street, came before Council on behalf of the Winnipeg and St. Andrew's Railway company, with a plan to build a railway line between Tyndall and Winnipeg, with the intention of delivering stone and sand to the booming city. Hutchings asked the City grant use of the Louise Bridge, recently vacated by the CPR, for the W&SAR. The line would come down either Point Douglas or Sutherland Avenue, terminating near Main Street.

Alderman Wood remarked that if the railroad brings more sand into the city, Council should support it, as he felt "many of them needed a little more sand." To this, the reporter went on, Alderman James G. Harvey "puffed vigorously at his pipe, the engineer suppressed a smile and City Clerk Brown meditatively stroked his whiskers." I guess you had to be there.

Story in the Telegram on a new railway plan for Point Douglas, June 1, 1904. Credit

Council informed Mr. Hutchings that they could not say for certain if a new track on Point Douglas Avenue, but did not see any objection to the W&SA using Sutherland.

Hutching's rail line was not constructed through Point Douglas. Sutherland Avenue was extended to the Louise Bridge by 1906, and both were not used for railways. While Point Douglas Avenue was given over almost exclusively to the CPR, the Company would build three more underpasses (at Higgins, Annabella, and Maple) in Point Douglas by the close of the decade.

At the time it could have been reasonably assumed that the residential enclave north of the mainline and east of Euclid would disappear, given over entirely to industry. These assumptions would be proven false, as a substantial enclave of residences still exist on streets like Stephen, Syndicate, and McFarlane. In the end, nothing--not railways or freeways, boom times or depressions; not too little planning at the turn of the 20th century, or too much planning in its second half--could make these ratepayers disappear entirely.

Klyne's Mill

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Edmund Lorenzo Barber, the hapless American entrepreneur who came to Red River in 1860, whose famous house stands forlorn at 99 Euclid Avenue, a Phoenix not yet taken flight, was not the first person to occupy the site. The history of the property where the neighborhood's oldest house now stands actually goes back further than the 1860s.

The Barber House seen from the back, 1959. Credit

Barber first went into business in 1860 with another young man originally from the West Indies, who arrived at Red River the year before: Don Derigo Nojada Gomez da Silva Fonseca, who would be known more simply as William G. Fonseca. These two men would become leading citizens of Point Douglas, and by virtue of their devotion to investing in Point Douglas, or perhaps their unsophistication to changing business practices, or simply bad luck, they would both live out their days in the neighborhood, long after their contemporaries had exited for Wellington Crescent and Armstrong's Point: Barber at his house on Euclid, Fonseca on Maple Street in South Point Douglas.

Barber and Fonseca's store was located at Redwood, the residence of William Inkster, and opposite Inkster's steam mill. Built in 1857, Redwood later became the site of the Drewry Brewery, and of course the avenue and bridge that bears its ancient place name.

The next year, Barber opened his own store "at Mrs. Campbell's, near Fort Garry." The exact location of this store is unclear, but the scope of its merchandise was quite vast. In an ad placed in The Nor'wester, Barber notes he carried "Dennims, Jeans, Plaids, Under Shirts, Hoop-Skirts," as well as "Tea, Dried Apples, Powder and Shot, Scythes, Children's Toy Books, Slates and Pencils, Perfumery, Hair Oil," among many other things.

In late 1862, Barber moved once again, this time, his ads proclaimed, to "near Klyne's Mill, on Point Douglas."

This map places Michel Klyne's Mill near the site of Barber House in North Point Douglas. Credit

Michel Klyne, a Catholic Metis, had operated a mill at mid-century in the vicinity of the present Barber House. The Klynes had lived on Point Douglas at least as early as 1832. It was Klyne's thatch-roofed residence, Thistle Cottage, that Barber moved to, and that his present house either replaced or added to.

Owing to the tough economic times the early '60s were for Red River, Barber wasn't picky: "In payment he will take Wheat, Barley and Flour, as well as Money," an ad in November read. He also took, it would seem, IOU's; in April of '63, Barber asked that "[a]ll persons owing me wheat or flour would confer a favor by paying me at once, or as soon as possible."

Ad placed in the April 13, 1863 edition of The Nor'wester. Credit

Barber would operate his store from the Euclid Avenue property until the winter of 1870-'71, when he relocated to "the High Road at the corner of Logan's Farm and Point Douglas." Or, as Winnipeggers of today would know it, the corner of Main Street and Henry Avenue. He continued to live at 99 Euclid until his death in 1909.

Tory Row

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Winnipeg's North End is famously known as the fountainhead of Western Canadian social democracy that, by the second half of the 20th century had become a national force. It is interesting, then, that for a brief moment in the 1880s, soon after Point Douglas had become established as a neighborhood defined by industry, railways, and Eastern European immigration, that a short stretch of Hallet Street would be home to three dominant Manitoba Conservatives.

Colin H. Campbell (1859-1914) was Manitoba's Attorney-General from 1900-'11, Premier John Norquay (1841-1889) was Premier of Manitoba from 1878-'86, and Nathaniel Boyd (1853-1941) became a young star of Robert Borden's federal Conservatives, and was an M.P. from 1891-1904.

Winnipeg Fire Insurance Map showing part of Hallet Street in 1905

Colin and his wife Minnie were newlywed twentysomethings--he a lawyer and she active in many social and church-related causes--who lived at 79 Hallet, a brick duplex. The Hon. and Mrs. Norquay lived in a large duplex two doors down, at 73. Their neighbors, the lumber merchant Nathaniel and his wife Eliza Boyd, were at 71, in a frame house Boyd constructed in 1882. Letters between Colin and Minnie Campbell from the summer of 1886 speak of evening visits among these families, as well as others including Boyd's partner in the lumber business, George Crowe and his wife who lived at number 67.

By 1890, these three men were gone from Hallet Street. In 1888, the Campbells moved to 149 James Ave. (and eventually to Roslyn Road), while Nathaniel Boyd moved to Carberry, MB to raise cattle. In July of '89, John Norquay died at the Hallet St. residence. His wife and children remained at that address for several more years.

Residence of John Norquay, c.1938. The Norquays occupied the right half of this building

In 1941, the Norquay residence was demolished, with part of its foundation and bricks used to construct two smaller houses on the site. The Campbell and Boyd residences are both standing today. Boyd's house was occupied by a series of long-term residents; while the Campbell duplex served as a boarding house through most of the 20th century, until 2005, when it was extensively renovated as four separate apartment units and occupied by new Ukrainian and Russian immigrants. It reportedly sold this month for $200,000.

Roseville Cottage

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In the summer of 1875, the merchant John Higgins constructed a house along the river at Point Douglas, known as Roseville Cottage.

At 68, John Higgins was one of the oldest free traders at Red River, first peddling general goods by cart around the settlement. By the time of the Provisional government in the winter of 1869-'70, Higgins had partnered with W.H. Lyon in a store built on the west side of the main road opposite Post Office Street. In 1874, Higgins built a new brick store on the same site, described as "a mammoth mercantile palace" that the Manitoba Free Press speculated would be "extremely doubtful if it is excelled by many metropolitan shops. It certainly stands out from the smaller wood frame commercial buildings that lined the main street of a brand new and desperately optimistic city.

The new Higgins store (left), on the west side of Main St. just south of McDermot, c.1875. Credit

Roseville Cottage stood on five acres of land on the south riverbank in Point Douglas, near the foot of present-day Gomez Street. In an article in the Manitoba Free Press, it was noted that Higgins' new house was a 15-minute walk to the post office (then on present-day Lombard Avenue), and commands a “good view of the river and a large portion of the city.” The grounds around the house were neatly landscaped with grass, and ornamental and fruit trees. At the back of the lot, extending up to Point Douglas Avenue (present-day CPR mainline), Higgins used the land for market farming.

The house itself was constructed of brick and featuring two bay windows, a small portico at the entrance, and three arched dormer windows protruding from the hipped roof. At a time (not unlike today) when every new impressive building offering validation to the local civic esteem, boosters could get a fix by strolling past Higgins' new residence; the Free Press noting that "those who are anxious to see what our Province can produce will be able to form a high opinion of Manitoba by a visit to Roseville Cottage."

Roseville Cottage, c.1880. Credit

John Higgins remained at the house until his death in 1884, and it appeared on the 1905 Winnipeg Fire Insurance Map, surrounded by the Alexander Black Lumber yards. It is likely that Roseville Cottage was demolished early in the 20th century.