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HYDRO SUB-STATION NO.1
54 King Street
1910-11 J.P. West Smith, Kerry & Chace, City of Winnipeg
Engineers
1913 One storey added (central section) James Chisolm
City Light & Power Company, the first public utility
in Western Canada, began operation in 1911. The utility had
entered into competition with the Winnipeg Electric (Railway)
Co. which operated the first water generated electrical system
beginning in 1903. From a generating station on the Winnipeg
River at Pointe du Bois to a terminal station in Point Douglas
through this substation, electricity flowed to businesses.
The new rates brought about by this competition made electricity
affordable to District manufactures (primarily in the clothing
trade) and dramatically effected their growth. The unique
building is constructed of brick and sandstone suspended on
a steel frame and is highly detailed; there have been numerous
additions since. With the construction of the downtown steam
heating plant on Amy Street in 1924, the station became a
distribution point for this system.
HIGH PRESSURE PUMPING STATION
109 James Avenue
1906 Lt. Col. Henry Norlande Ruttan City of Winnipeg Engineer
The High Pressure
Pumping Station severed the District as one of the most sophisticated
of its kind in the world. It was constructed under pressure
from Winnipeg citizens after river water was pumped into the
main water system and typhoid broke out following a major
fire in 1904. The Pumping Station supplied over seventy fire
hydrants in the downtown with water drawn initially from the
Red River, but later from Shoal Lake. Water was pumped through
eight miles of mains separated from the domestic supply -
the mains system was controlled from the Central Fire Hall
(on the present site of Market Square) while City Waterworks
operated the gas engine pumping system. Most of the cost was
raised through taxation of downtown business which benefited
from the reduction insurance rates and the improved fire safety
which the system brought about. In the near future structure
will be converted to a museum interpreting the original role
the building performed.
VICTORIA PARKS & GARDENS
ROSS HOUSE & COLONY GARDENS
One of Winnipeg's first four public parks was Victoria Park,
opened in 1894 on the site of Victoria and colony Gardens
at the foot of James Avenue facing the Red River. Victoria
Gardens was an amusement park named in 1885 for the British
Empire's long reigning monarch; Colony Gardens before it was
begun in 1843 by Alexander Ross, the Red River settlement's
first sheriff whose eldest son, William, became its first
postmaster in 1855. William Ross constructed a house of the
post office. It was built of hand-hewn squared logs in the
style known as Red River Frames. Following the death of William
Ross in 1856, his widow, Jemima and her second husband William
Coldwell continued to occupy the house until 1904. The Ross
family was responsible for donating the Civic Market Site
and for selling the City Hall site on Main Street to a group
of business who in turn donated it to the City.
Ross House was saved from demolition by the Manitoba Historical
Society and following two moves, it relocated to Joe Zuken
Heritage Park in Point Douglas where it is open to the public.
STEPHEN JUBA PARK
Named for Winnipeg's longest serving mayor, Stephen Juba
Park on the Red River was opened in 1984. It is part of the
Red River Corridor, a system of parks which stretches from
St. Norbert, south of Winnipeg to Netley Creek on the north.
This park occupies a site which, prior to the arrival of the
transcontinental railway in 1881, several as the commercial
centre of Winnipeg. Ship Street suggests the early history
of his area when most settlers and goods coming to the new
city were transported by boat from St. Paul, Minnesota where
the closest rail line passes. Alexander Dock still stands
at he northern end of the park. More recently, a railway spur
line that had serviced the many warehouses which were built
in the District has been removed and the land has been redeveloped
as a landscaped walk called Theatre Way. Freight trains continue
to pass over the bridge at the southern end of the park.
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