Free Press Building
300 Carlton Street

Founded by William Fisher Luxton and John A. Kenny, the Winnipeg Free Press has served as the voice of the West. The first home of the paper was a cramped, clapboard shack at 555 Main Street. The Free Press began as an eight-page weekly newspaper on November 9, 1972 and by year's end had a circulation of nearly 1,200. Less than two years after its first issue, the paper had become popular enough to reorganize into two publications: the four-page Daily Free Press and the Free Press Prairie Farmer. As circulation numbers rose, the Free Press relocated to spacious new headquarters on Carlton Street in 1913.

The Free Press Building was designed in the later part of the Edwardian Classical era as part of the reduced or chaste Classical design, a British style design traced to the reign of King Edward VII (1901-10). The new style was actually the free mixing of various historic styles and was the era of grandiose structures.

The six-storey Free Press Building uses a skeleton frame of reinforced concrete to support the brick exterior walls and has a flat roof. Ornamental stone and terra cotta are found on the exterior elevations of the building.

The Free Press Building had to fulfill a number of very different roles: factory, major shipping and receiving concerns and business office. Because of the highly public mature of the occupant, this had to all be combined in a structure that was aesthetically pleasing both inside and out. There is no question that this building is one of Winnipeg's most recognizable features. It has served as a public feature for many decades and will continue to do so.