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The Exchange District

Peck Building 33 Princess Street
This warehouse was built in 1893, for clothing manufacterer and importer, John W. Peck. Designed by C.H. Wheeler, it is located on the corner of Notre Dame Avenue and Princess Street on the western boundary of the warehouse district.

Ryan Building 44 Princess Street
Thomas Ryan (1849-1937), a native of Perth, Ontario, came to Winnipeg in 1874 and began a retail business. He established an import-wholesale business that extended from the Lakehead to the West Coast.

Ryan Building Annex 46-50 Princess Street
Designed by Thomas Ryan himself and built in 1906.

Del Block 54-62 Princess Street
Designed by George Ryan one of Thomas Ryan's three brothers who joined him in business.

City Hydro Showroom 55 Princess Street
As City Light and Power grew, additional functions were being offered by the company. A two-storey addition was built on the Princess side of the main structure during 1919-20. This portion of the building became the Hydro Showrooms where electrical appliances could be displayed and purchased by customers.

Bole Drug 70 Princess Street
In 1903, work began on a five storey, 65’ x 69’ brick warehouse. The various departments, each supervised by qualified chemists, were efficiently organized for production and distribution, while a system of "speaking tubes" facilitated communication between departments and the firm’s business office.

Oddfellows Hall 72-74 Princess Street
In 1883-84, the Independent Order of Oddfellows constructed this three-storey Romanesque-style structure with a metal cornice showing the initials IOOF and ML No.1 (Manitoba Lodge No. 1) together with the cryptic symbols of the mystic order – a crescent moon with seven stars and a three-link chain.

Earn International Building 78-84 Princess Street
The Earn Building is one of several pre-1900 buildings on Princess Street that are the city’s oldest surviving warehouses.

Miller, Morse & Co. Warehouse 86-88 Princess
The original three-storey section of this building was erected in 1887 by a hardware wholesaler, Miller, Morse and Company. Capacity was doubled when a building of identical design was added to the north side in 1892.

Canada Rubber Building (Hemisphere Building) 87-89 Princess
The Kilgour-Rimer Block was built in 1901 next to the 8 year old Canada Rubber Building at 89 Princess. They have combined to become what is now called the Hemisphere Building.

Campbell-Wilson Building 100 Princess Street
Built in 1903 by architect J.H.G. Russell, this brick warehouse was originally 4 storeys. A two storey addition was made in 1912 with the same architect. The first floor maximized loading functions with 3 doors on Princess Street for carts and 3 doors at the rear backed onto a CPR railway spur.

Galt Block 103 Princess Street
The style of the building is Richardsonian. There are wide arches with narrower arches at the corner that curves and is treated with a vertical shaft of limestone.

Princess Street Warehouse 104 Princess Street
The Confederation Life Association built this five-storey brick warehouse in 1885 as a speculative venture.

Maw's Garage 109 Princess Street
Maw and Company Garage was constructed in 1906 for the interests of Joseph Maw.  Maw was a Winnipeg businessman whose career illustrates how the settlement of Western Canada presented boundless opportunities to many an ambitious man.

Fairchild/Sterling Cloak Building
110-120 Princess Street

One of the first warehouses to utilize steel construction, the Fairchild Building, located in the western boundary of the district, serves as a magnificent example of this new approach to warehouse design that occurred across North America after the turn-of-the century.

Miller & Richards Type Founders Building
(Western Elevator and Motor Co.) 123 Princess

Together with the adjacent Maw & Co. Garage on Princess Street, the Miller and Richard Type Founders building remains an important part of turn-of-the-century commercial streetscape that still exists in the warehouse district southwest of City Hall.

Drake Hotel (Benson Block) 146 Princess Street
Originally called the Benson Block, this hotel was a twin of the Bawlf Block at 148 Princess, Joseph Benson had operated a livery stable on the site, and together with Nicholas Bawlf, financed the construction of the two buildings. 

Bawlf Block (House of Comoy) 150 Princess
This is the second home of the Winnipeg Grain and Produce Exchange. The building was built by one of its founders, Nicholas Bawlf, an Irish immigrant who settled in Ontario before coming west in 1877. The Victorian Commercial structure was the center of the grain industry upon its opening.

Harris Block (Hochmans Building) 154 Princess
The oldest agricultural implement warehouse in the District was constructed for A. Harris, Son & Co. This Ontario-based agricultural implement manufacturer opened a Winnipeg branch in 1872 to service the growing grain industry. It built this Victorian Eclectic warehouse with details of sheaves of wheat on the façade.

Bawlf Grain Exchange Building II 160 Princess
The Winnipeg Grain and Produce Exchange was created on November 24, 1887 in the office of the Board of Trade in City Hall by twelve leading grain merchants. The rapid growth of the grain trade necessitated the construction of the second Grain Exchange on Princess Street.

Utility Building (Grain Exchange) 164 Princess
In 1892, a time when the wheat boom in the Northwest was making fortunes for many western businessmen, Winnipeg’s first Grain and Produce Exchange was formed. One of the founders, Nicholas Bawlf, erected this building intending to house the Board of Trade.

Carnefac Block 188 Princess
An example of Edwardian style construction, this two storey warehouse was built in 1905.

McLaughlin Carriage 200 Princess
The Winnipeg branch was opened in 1901 or 1902. Land was acquired at the north-east corner of Princess Street and Ross Avenue, the former location of the Grand Union Hotel which had burnt down in 1894.

Princess

 

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