Historical Winnipeg discussion

[Only The Lonely..]

Originally Posted by drew

I managed to find the obituary of the original owner of our house from the 1920s (which also explained that she died AT our house...).

Ya know, I got a ouija board..

And for a quick dirty six of Molson Dry, I'd be willing to battle it out with her and get that ghost out of your home.

Just throwing it out there..

I live on Ruby Street, and have seen Ghostbusters 1 and 2 a combined total of 218 times.

( I started keeping track of the number of times I had seen those movies from age 7 and up, so it might actually be higher)

I consider myself a professional of sorts.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by drew

To get the age (year built) of your house, try this link. Just type in your address.

For the month, you need to dig a little deeper and get the city archives to search for stuff about your house, check out henderson directories, etc. We managed to get copies of our building permit, architect and builder info and a plumbing sketch... no drawings though unfortunately.

I managed to find the obituary of the original owner of our house from the 1920s (which also explained that she died AT our house...).

Another great source is the Free Press Archives ... Type in your address or street name and you could find all sorts of information, including (perhaps) the originals 'for sale' or 'for rent' notice. I did that once for 1ajs' house in Point Douglas and we found tons of stuff, including a photo from the 1910s.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by Only The Lonely..

Ya know, I got a ouija board.

And for a quick dirty six of Molson Dry, I'd be willing to make contact with her and get her out of your home.

Just throwing it out there..

I live on Ruby Street, and have seen Ghostbusters 1 and 2 a combined total of 218 times.

( I started keeping track of the number of times I had seen those movies from age 7 and up, so it might actually be higher)

I consider myself a professional of sorts.

It's really just a very recent thing that people die away from home. Practically any older house in Winnipeg would have had people die in it. And a large proportion of deaths would have been of children, not older people ... if that affects your ghost busting or not I'm not sure.

[1ajs]

indeed and a sad story about a chap that got run over on his bike in 44 at burrows and main they held his viewing in my livingroom
also found adds for the lot being forsale in 1881 and 82 auction listings for the orignal owners estate sale who was a union boss and he had several properties in the area. something about a bosijour school board admin living here for a while in the 1890s ad from 1902 of an electrician looking for work who lived here ect ect ect then that photo from 1914 with info about naturalization frauds saved the whole page if anyone wants to read the articals




as for ghosts i got em on and off if otl wants when it warms up i think he should go set up in a park around here and see what he finds

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by drew

To get the age (year built) of your house, try this link. Just type in your address.

Got it, 1928. Thanks!

[drew]

Originally Posted by Only The Lonely..

Ya know, I got a ouija board..

And for a quick dirty six of Molson Dry, I'd be willing to battle it out with her and get that ghost out of your home.

Just throwing it out there..

I live on Ruby Street, and have seen Ghostbusters 1 and 2 a combined total of 218 times.

( I started keeping track of the number of times I had seen those movies from age 7 and up, so it might actually be higher)

I consider myself a professional of sorts.

No worries, if there are any ghosts, they are of the peaceful variety. Our house is very quiet.

Maybe you should give the Ouija board a trial run at your place, just to be sure you don't conjure up something terrible, and then we'll try to contact the stonemason's widow at my place for a conversation. Maybe she can show me some pictures of the place when it was first built!

@Andy6 - I did get a membership at the FP archives a while back. It was very cool, but beyond some for rent ads and the like, there was nothing too crazy to be found. I did find out that a cheetah was kept as a pet in my brother's house in the 1920's though...

[myuglyface]

Sad how those facades often got covered up, like with the Rex and, as is obvious here, the Columbia.

The September 8, 1934 Free Press lists this under permits granted:

Alterations to the front of the
Columbia Theatre. 606 Main Street-,
by the new owner, S. Weiner, will
cost $5,000; and there are a number
of other improvements to the building,
inside and out, to be made.

But I wonder if this permit was responsible for how it looks in the fire shot. Somehow, I can't imagine in 1934 that this would have been considered an improvement, though "too old fashioned looking" has always been around in all time frames I suppose. Victorian to Art Deco maybe? Then just postwar Bauhaus later?

[myuglyface]

http://s101.photobucket.com/albums/m...glyface/House/

117 years old for this West Ender.

Our house turns 104 this June...

[Andy6]

Here's a neat nighttime shot from the Manitoba Hotel (where the Federal Building now stands) looking up Main Street past Portage & Main. The date would be approximately 1897.



This is actually done by darkening a photograph taken in daytime and then adding the colour (in the windows) as part of the lithographic process. Obviously it would have been a rare sight for every window in the city to be lit up so brightly.

Here's the same photo from another postcard, cropped slightly differently, without the nighttime effect. In the foreground are the turrets of the Manitoba Hotel, which burned down early in 1899:



Both images have the same Valentine & Sons serial number: 100,369.

[bryanscott]

Great find. Thanks for sharing.

[drew]

What's the tallish building way off in the distance?

[1ajs]

grain elevator was one of 4 built during the 1870's boom of witch only 1 still stands and in use!

[drew]

^ cool thanks. Where is it?

[1ajs]

higgins and southerland
http://www.google.ca/maps?ie=UTF8&ll...24.01,,0,-5.32

i beleave its the oldest one in western canada still in service

[Jeff]

nice pics, andy!

and there is no way you cold see higgins and sutherland from that angle! so that grain elevator is long gone...

[Andy6]

I think he meant that there were four, of which that was one, and that of the four only the one at Higgins and Sutherland is still standing.

[Jeff]

oh ok makes sense now!

[eman]

Here is a picture of the downtown postoffice plant and office tower. Note the triangle on the roof of the plant,, its a helicopter pad. I wonder if the Winnipeg police will make use of it when they refurbish the building.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by Andy6

Another great source is the Free Press Archives ... Type in your address or street name and you could find all sorts of information, including (perhaps) the originals 'for sale' or 'for rent' notice. I did that once for 1ajs' house in Point Douglas and we found tons of stuff, including a photo from the 1910s.

i tried my place in river heights.....it was built for william mckay omand, born in winnipeg in 1860, winnipeg pioneer and prairie missionary....graduated (theology) in the first class of the manitoba college (u of m) in 1887....he was one of dr. james roberton's 'sky pilots'.

the son of the omand of omand's creek fame and died in 1946 when he got hit by a car in the street out front of the house.



born in 1860, he had to be one of the first people born in winnipeg....

[Pootkao]

The Manitoba Archives building was built as Winnipeg's first concert hall - the Manitoba Auditorium. It was a make-work project during the depression. It got converted to its current state in the 70's.

Now, a band from Edmonton called The Provincial Archive is touring across Canada, performing in all the provincial archive buildings. Coincidentally, ours used to be a concert hall.

My band Les Jupes will be joining them this coming Saturday May 14. 7 pm. Free!

Here's the facebook event page.

And here's historic info on the building.