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Posted Mar 4, 2010, 1:16 AM
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Density and complexity
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Parish of St. John
Posts: 2,644
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Here is an article from the Winnipeg Tribune, 1960, on a duplex at the corner of Martha and Logan Ave. The owner of the house at the time of the article's writing, to me, sounds like the archetypical downtown property owner of today, and an example of why Winnipeg never recovered after 1914
(Photo taken in 1964)
"Disraeli Freeway has taken the wraps off Point Douglas. People who never heard of Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, are seeing the ground where his sttlers' log huts were burnt after the Seven Oaks massacre. Their stockaded fort, sold to Robert Logan in 1825, was in turn demolished to make room for posh brick homes in the booming '80s. Today they too await the hammer. Only street names remain.
Where the impatient highway swings past the CPR to Logan and Main a begrimed old house attracts the eye of business men turning away from the Rotary and Kiwanis luncheons at Royal Alexandra Hotel. It was built in 1889 for $15,000 by a leather goods merchant, Ernest F. Hutchings. In 1905 he moved from his Martha home to 424 Wellington Crescent, taking its name with him. Both places in turn he called Gifford Hall, a family name. The Crescent house is today the German Consulate.
He died a millionaire in 1930 but he came to Winnipeg on foot with 50 cents in his pocket. At 15 he'd been apprenticed to a harness maker at Newboro, Ont. At 19, a journeyman, he walked from Port Arthur to Fort Garry.
It was 1875, a grasshopper year, and no work to be had at Red River. 'Broadcloth' Smith talked him into going to Edmonton, an Eldorado. Ernest made a little money repairing harness, spent the winter in a log cabin, trapping his meat. Back to Winnipeg in 1877 he his few goods in the hotel he stopped at when fire broke out.
But Mr. Hutchings' skill at repairing harness was now in demand. In two years he had a partner and a shop on the west side of Main St., at McDermot. In 1900 he organized a wholesale firm, Great West Saddlery, with a capital of a quarter-million. He sold out four years before his death. Today Birt Saddlery at Main and Market bears the name of his son-in-law, Jack Birt.
No. 47-49 Martha St. today leaves a nostalgic feeling in the heart for all passed splendours. It's dark and dready. The owner, Alpin McGregor, who bought in 1933 to settle an estate, admits, 'I'm in a bad way. I don't know whether to spend money on it or let it go. The city fire and water departments are checking up on me. The city took my corner, eight feet in from the interesection, in May and nothing has been paid yet. I asked for $1,000 but they want to give me only $500.'
With United Empire Loyalist and Scottish blood, Mr. McGregor came to Winnipeg from Fort William in the boom year of 1925, 'to play the Grain Exchange.' He had no success. Then came the offer to buy the house. 'It was depression days, with city relief people in it, and pensioners.'
A dance hall and a Jewish restaurant had been conducted briefly in the Martha house, then owner said. 'It cost $15,000 to build, I've heard. They say I can get $20,000, but I doubt it.'
The hall was dark, its once splendid square staircase rising behind his shoulders. The plush seat built in at the bottom was faded and scuffed. The high ceiling light sprang from concretic circles of white plaster.
'It would make a good spot for that new police station, if they took the whole block to Alexander Ave.,' mused Mr. McGregor.
Ernest F. Hutchings, Academy Rd., is the only one of the five children born in the house who now lives in Winnipeg. 'My brother Harold is in Mantoulin Island, my sister Hazel in Vancouver.'
W.M. Thompson, present of the firm now, recalls having lunch and dinner in the Martha house in 1905.
'It was good food, I remember, and a big family sat round the dining room table. A large glass chandeliere came well down over the table. Flowered carpet reached from wall to wall. I'd just come from our Ontario farm it all seemed very swish to me.'
Mr. Hutchings was his uncle. 'He was six-feet-two, with a moustache, a fine looking man," says Mr. Thompson.
W.C. Birt, borther of jack who married one of the daughters, says the Martha house was 'the best house in Winnipeg at the time. Yes, '89 must be the date it was built. We came in '88. It was wonderful to be in that house. The family was very sociable. 'Society' people lived on James St. then. We used to go out to the sand hills to play golf and stay at The Castle, we called it.'
Mr. Thompson has a picture, 'Best wishes, Christmas, 1912," showing Chateau Hutchings, a castle if there ever was one, all pointed cupolas and battlement. The address was 'Lorne Hill,' now Bird's Hill, and the golf course became the Winnipeg Golf Course."
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