Historical Winnipeg discussion

[trueviking]

forgot about this one!
The second Knox Presbyterian Church was located at the intersection of Princess Street and Ellice Avenue. 1888-1916.

Current Knox was opened in 1918.

[trueviking]

its too bad all the little spires are gone from the existing one...i wonder what happened to them...

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by trueviking

i revised what i wrote....the first knox was just a little wooden box built in 1868. When they built the bigger one they just moved the little one over. All saints' built their church at the corner of garry and portage. Both were demolished for holy trinity....its all pretty cool....seems like this all happened pretty quickly.

It's wild how quickly they replaced buildings in the late 19th/early 20th centuries in Winnipeg. Like, most of the beautiful older churches in Winnipeg had a modest wooden (but still very fine) precursor building that was used for maybe 3-4 years.

Even commercial buildings with brick facades built in the 1870s as "ornaments to the city" or whatever were gone within 20-30 years. Hard to imagine living in a time where growth was that rapid and it was a given that whatever replaced a building was going to be bigger and better than what was there before.

**
All Saints was not established until the early 1880s though. It probably would have been a mission of Holy Trinity, built to more conveniently serve the growing number of people living in the west end of the city. The first church in Winnipeg was Holy Trinity in 1867. (This doesn't includes the old pre-urban churches outside of what's now downtown, like St. Boniface or St. John's cathedrals.) Then came Knox Presbyterian and Grace Methodist (1868), and St. Mary's Roman Catholic (1876).

[pacman]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ It was like that right up until the mid 80s when the tracks were removed.

As I understand it, the CN East Yards became expendable following a decline in passenger rail and associated activities (mail and express service) and newer facilities for freight, namely Symington Yards. After Symington Yards opened up the East Yards became functionally obsolete, and CN gradually closed them down.

CN attempted to launch a major redevelopment scheme for the East Yards (someone posted some information about that here within the last year or two), like major stuff with offices, hotels, an arena, etc., but Winnipeg was kind of in the doldrums in those years of the late 70s. So I suppose one thing led to another, and the focus became a park-type development instead which is what it is now, i.e. The Forks.

One of the big differences between The Forks and rail line relocation in general is that the East Yard was a relatively small chunk of land in a desirable area, right between downtown and where the rivers meet. By contrast, other rail yards like the CP Winnipeg Yards and Weston Shops are in relatively undesirable areas from a development standpoint.

And of course the major difference is that CN shut down the East Yards. It no longer had a use for that facility. The layers of government didn't have to pry those yards away from the railway the same way that it would all of the other operating CN and CP infrastructure in town.

Thanks for that, so it seems like it all happened because CN just didn't want the yards anymore, but it still seems so strange how easy it seems in retrospect for them to just get out of there when they had a better location and it made sense for them. To me that kinda confirms that even though rail relocation is truly a massive undertaking it really isn't as big of a pipe dream as people make it out to be. Obviously the scale of moving the CP Yards/Weston Shops is a lot more than what happened at the Forks, but in the end it boils down to motivation. Regardless, there is going to be a shit ton of money spent over the next few decades whether its forever maintaining/adding/replacing crossings or starting over with a blank slate and recapturing developable land. If I'm sinking billions of dollars into dealing with the tracks the way they are I'd be pretty inclined to spend some more and get them out of the way once and for all. Really curious if an actual realistic cost/benefit comparison would show keeping the yards as a no-brainer decision.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by wardlow

All Saints was not established until the early 1880s though. It probably would have been a mission of Holy Trinity, built to more conveniently serve the growing number of people living in the west end of the city. The first church in Winnipeg was Holy Trinity in 1867. (This doesn't includes the old pre-urban churches outside of what's now downtown, like St. Boniface or St. John's cathedrals.) Then came Knox Presbyterian and Grace Methodist (1868), and St. Mary's Roman Catholic (1876).

ah, so the all saints on portage was not a precursor to the broadway one?

any idea where the first holy trinity was?

[trueviking]

i have heard that winnipeg is th eonly city on north america with two roman catholic cathedrals....my. mary's and st. boniface....built to serve english and french

[esquire]

Originally Posted by pacman

Thanks for that, so it seems like it all happened because CN just didn't want the yards anymore, but it still seems so strange how easy it seems in retrospect for them to just get out of there when they had a better location and it made sense for them. To me that kinda confirms that even though rail relocation is truly a massive undertaking it really isn't as big of a pipe dream as people make it out to be. Obviously the scale of moving the CP Yards/Weston Shops is a lot more than what happened at the Forks, but in the end it boils down to motivation. Regardless, there is going to be a shit ton of money spent over the next few decades whether its forever maintaining/adding/replacing crossings or starting over with a blank slate and recapturing developable land. If I'm sinking billions of dollars into dealing with the tracks the way they are I'd be pretty inclined to spend some more and get them out of the way once and for all. Really curious if an actual realistic cost/benefit comparison would show keeping the yards as a no-brainer decision.

I guess some of this boils down to corporate philosophy. CN, especially in the 60s, was prone to big, bold, dynamic thinking. It tried to be on the cutting edge and in that respect, it's no surprise that it replaced the smaller, older, outdated Fort Rouge and East Yards with the much more modern Symington Yard on the outskirts of town. Maybe having access to government money as a crown corporation, which it was back then, helped. In any event, the decision to move opened up a lot of space at what is now The Forks.

By contrast, the stodgier CP was less spendy. They continue to operate out of their centrally-located yards which have been in place since the 1800s. They would likely be better off with a more modern facility, but what they're doing appears to work for them. So how do you convince them to give up their facilities and move to CentrePort or wherever? How much is it going to cost in terms of buying out CP and then remediating the land left behind? What is the uptake likely to be for land in between the Centennial area and the North End? It's a less sure bet than The Forks was. The Forks is a nice place, but it's not exactly a money machine. Would it even be sustainable without the help coming in in the form of money diverted from the Portage Place parkade?

So the bottom line is that while it's certainly possible, relocating the CP yards and/or rail line may not be the most feasible project around. The bang for the buck is not likely to be great.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by trueviking

i have heard that winnipeg is th eonly city on north america with two roman catholic cathedrals....my. mary's and st. boniface....built to serve english and french

I have not heard that one, but what I did hear more than once that Winnipeg is apparently one of the only cities on earth with three Catholic cathedrals. The two RC ones, and the one Ukrainian Catholic one. I haven't fact checked this, but I understand that only Rome and Jerusalem have more Catholic cathedrals than Winnipeg (others may be tied).

[trueviking]

now that's a fun fact.

[bomberjet]

It's one thing for the railways to give up land that is functionally obsolete, like the Forks. Those stub end tracks are so short they're basically useless today. Exactly why CN gave it up. See Symington as a much better layout. Fort Rouge yard is another example. Consolidated out to Symington, with Fort Rouge now a minor staging yard and the VIA shops.

Now, trying to relocate Weston Yards from where they are. CP is still functioning there just fine. They have no reason to move. None. That is the problem we face. It's their main yard between Toronto and Calgary.

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by trueviking

ah, so the all saints on portage was not a precursor to the broadway one?

any idea where the first holy trinity was?

I haven't heard of an All Saints church other than the one that was on Broadway? There might have been, but this article doesn't mention it. Actually looking at this it sounds like All Saints was established to offer a different (I assume more traditional) form of worship than Holy Trinity. (And yes I am fully prepared to turn this thread into a discussion of anglican liturgy...)

Holy Trinity began in the second floor of a commercial building Andrew McDermot built about 1864. This building stood on the east side of Main between Post Office (Lombard) and Portage East, where the Richardson Building is now. You can see part of it on the far right side of this photo. McDermot built this with a few separate commercial spaces on the ground floor, and a second floor as one large room. This upper level was used as "Red River Hall" for concerts and plays, mostly put on by the troops stationed at Fort Garry. And then in 1867 church services began being held there on Sunday evenings. The services were popular and there was worry the floor would collapse, and so in 1868 Holy Trinity moved into the court house (somewhere near the SW corner of Portage & Main) before building their own building.
McDermot's building on Main was the first location of the Manitoba Club before it was destroyed by fire in 1874 or '5.

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by esquire

I have not heard that one, but what I did hear more than once that Winnipeg is apparently one of the only cities on earth with three Catholic cathedrals. The two RC ones, and the one Ukrainian Catholic one. I haven't fact checked this, but I understand that only Rome and Jerusalem have more Catholic cathedrals than Winnipeg (others may be tied).

Interesting. So there's the three catholic cathedrals, plus the Ukrainian Orthodox cathedral and the Anglican cathedral in the North End... I think that's it?

[trueviking]

amazing...i wonder why the person who created that image thought the third church was all saints.

that photo is awesome.

[trueviking]

reading that article you posted it seems possible that the photo with three churches is knox 1, knox 2 and trinity 1. The second photo is of knox 1 and trinity 1 that was significantly expanded with knox 1 gone.

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by trueviking

reading that article you posted it seems possible that the photo with three churches is knox 1, knox 2 and trinity 1. The second photo is of knox 1 and trinity 1 that was significantly expanded with knox 1 gone.

I think that's the case... it's confusing because there wasn't Henderson directories or fire insurance maps in those early days, and Trinity and Knox just seemed to build a new church or addition every few years.

[trueviking]

ok. I figured it out. The perspective of the two photos is different. The church called all saints is actually across the street on the southwest corner of portage and Garry. The other side of portage was always two churches, knox on fort, trinity (1869) on garry. Knox 1 (1870) is not seen in the photo. It must have been moved south. The second photo is of an enlarged trinity (enlarged in 1875) and Knox 2 (1879)

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by trueviking

since we are here....i came across this tid bit that I didn't know about....there used to be three churches between fort and garry on Portage avenue....the original Knox, then a seconf knox and the origonal got moved over, then the original all saints, then it got demolished for the original holy trinity

Okay I'm still curious about this All Saints that's referenced here... I really think this may have been a typo? Unless there was another church denomination named All Saints in the 1870s. Because if this was the earliest iteration of the current All Saints, I can't see why there would have been two Anglican/Church of England churches right beside each other in a tiny city of a few thousand people.

[thurmas]

Does anyone have pictures of North portage before portage place was built? I was just an infant when portage place was being built so I don't know what it looked like prior to PP being built.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by wardlow

Okay I'm still curious about this All Saints that's referenced here... I really think this may have been a typo? Unless there was another church denomination named All Saints in the 1870s. Because if this was the earliest iteration of the current All Saints, I can't see why there would have been two Anglican/Church of England churches right beside each other in a tiny city of a few thousand people.

i agree...it definitely looks like three churches in that photo and it is mentioned more than once.....He says all saints was located on the southwest corner but the maps show three buildings on the one southeast property and that looks the same as the photo. I cant find mention of all saints on portage avenue anywhere else.

Was that maybe the Knox 1 church and it was expanded from the original inset photo?

[wardlow]

Originally Posted by trueviking

i agree...it definitely looks like three churches in that photo and it is mentioned more than once.....He says all saints was located on the southwest corner but the maps show three buildings on the one southeast property and that looks the same as the photo. I cant find mention of all saints on portage avenue anywhere else.

Was that maybe the Knox 1 church and it was expanded from the original inset photo?

Could be that it was Knox 1 that was expanded... I don't imagine they would have just demolished the older church buildings. They would often move older buildings elsewhere when they replaced them back then.

I give up on this for now. But I'll conclude with throwing another bit of evidence in the mix -- the fire insurance map of 1880, which shows Knox, Holy Trinity, and a third church building used as a warehouse.