JUST days before Manitobans celebrate Louis Riel Day, staff at U.N. Luggage in the Exchange accidentally uncovered their own piece of Red River history -- a graffiti wall that dates back to 1889.
Jon Thiessen said a staff member at his family's bag and travel shop was removing wood panels from a store wall on Friday as part of renovation.
Several wood panels were ripped off and revealed a plaster surface with names, dates, and scrawls of horses, Red River carts and sheep.
Thiessen said one man wrote: "coming from Point Douglas, met a broad after a hoe down," near hand-drawn pictures of ducks and multiple signatures penned in thick, black paint or charcoal. Dates ranging from Feb. 29, 1889 to 1891 covered the wall.
"One hundred years ago, no one (wanted) to see brick so they covered it up with plaster," Thiessen said, pointing at names written on the wall.
"I guess these are the guys that did the wall."
U.N. Luggage is located at 175 McDermot Ave. Now a heritage building, it was built in the early 1880s as a three-story warehouse.
The crumbling plaster wall is located on an upper mezzanine, about seven feet off the store's ground level. Thiessen said the mezzanine was added around 1910, and believes the original drawings likely extended from the mezzanine down to ground level but were destroyed during the renovation.
He said the unusual discovery has put the store's renovation on hold, as no one is quite sure what to do with it. He's hoping history buffs or someone willing to photograph the wall for posterity will step forward with some ideas.
"I really wonder why they would've drawn the animals," Thiessen said.
jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca