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This image of Main Street at Belmont (West Kildonan) in 1948 gives a good sense of what the major streets looked like out in old suburbia. Most of what would be the median and the middle two lanes today would have been for electric utilities, ie, hydro poles and streetcar tracks. I think that around the early part of the century, only one side of the streets (between properties and the streetcar corridors) were graded or paved and had sidewalks. This is why, for example, the north side of Portage Avenue between Sherbook and Polo Park is (relatively more) built up with older/more sidewalk-oriented buildings.
- In the late 1940s and early '50s, streetcar lines disappeared when suburban streets were fully paved. I recall reading this was the case on Academy and on Corydon: the City wanted to pave the entire roadway, but wanted Winnipeg Electric to pay their share if they kept streetcar tracks in the road, level with the new pavement (similar to downtown Portage Ave. or Main). Winnipeg Electric didn't want to pay for this, so it just converted the routes to electric trolleybuses.
- The City of Winnipeg required indoor plumbing and toilets for all residential buildings in 1905, and the addresses of properties that didn't upgrade by the deadline were published in the newspaper. This would have largely done away with outhouses within City limits. I imagine many of the suburban municipalities didn't make these same requirements until later in the century.
- Totally an aside, but I wonder when livestock began to be regulated in the City. People would of course keep horses in the early 20th century, but I think I've heard of some Point Douglas households kept a cow or two in the backyard. My grandfather would tell me that when he would visit
his grandparents' house on McMillan near Nassau St., they had a few chickens in their backyard. This would have been the mid-1930s.
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