Pattern Book Houses

The rush to settle the West created a vast market for pattern book buildings. Pattern books, produced by mail-order and lumber companies, offered the public a wealth of well-crafted and economical house designs. These designs might be produced simply as plans and sold for as little as $6, or promoted as prefabricated building packages, right down to the nails. Building developers relied on many of the ideas promoted in pattern books to create their own versions of those designs. Pattern book designs were also sold for barns and outbuildings. By the turn of the century school buildings were the object of standardized pattern book designs. Even church organizations used pattern book designs for some of their buildings. Read More

Schools

One and two-room schools were built throughout Manitoba between 1880 and 1940. Pioneer classes were held in churches or private homes. As the need for better facilities arose, specially designed buildings were erected. By the 1890s provincial standards were applied to the construction of school buildings and, by the turn of the century, carefully crafted buildings designed by architects were widely available to local school districts. Schools were built approximately six miles apart so that students would not have excessive distances to travel. By the time school consolidation began in the 1950s, there had been almost 2,500 school buildings constructed in the province. Read More

Pattern Book Barns

By the turn of the century the introduction of new farm machinery, innovative construction techniques and scientific planning greatly altered the appearance of barns. The hay sling (a net-like device on a track mechanism) and the grain auger (a tube in which grain was moved along a rotating turbine), provided an easier, more economical way to move hay and feed around in the barn; these and other innovations permitted new planning options. The introduction of tractors around 1900 led to the decline of the horse as the principal source of farm power, and contributed to the development of barns that were devoted solely to cattle production. Mail-order and lumber companies offered a variety of barn designs and kits which included all materials. Read More

Grain Elevators

A vital component of the distribution and storage network of the emerging agricultural economy in Manitoba were the country grain elevators that were built along the rail lines beginning in the 1880s. By 1910 there were 707 grain elevators in this province. Elevators were usually located eight to ten miles apart. This was a convenient distance that allowed a farmer to deliver his grain and return home the same day. Elevators were owned exclusively by private companies until the advent of farmer-owned Co-operatives in the early 1900s. Read More

Boomtown Structures

When the Canadian West was opened to settlement in the 1880s -- the beginning of the Boom years -- and the railways began to work their way westwards, entire prairie communities sprang up virtually Overnight. The commercial centres in these new towns typically consisted of simple wood frame structures hidden behind boomtown or false-fronted façades. By extending the gable front up past the eaves and beyond the roofline, small buildings could be made to look larger and more dignified. The tall fronts provided room for advertising signage as well. By the 1890s, prefabricated, disassembled boomtown fronts of pressed tin and cast iron were available through mail-order companies. In Manitoba, boomtown fronts were most frequently used on stores, small office buildings, blacksmith shops, livery barns and church and community halls. Read More

Railway Stations

The Prairie Provinces were opened to settlement during the 1880s and 90s by the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern (later Canadian National) Railway. Both companies identified a hierarchy of cominunities about 20 or 30 kilometres apart and produced a range of standardized station designs to service them. The largest communities, the primary distribution centres on each system, had First Class stations, the object of an architect's individual attentions. Large towns -- identified in the hierarchy as significant regional distribution points -- had a standardized Second Class station. Smaller communities had one of several available standardized Third or Fourth Class stations. Read More

Eastern European Churches

Ukrainian, Romanian and Russian immigrants to Manitoba constructed church buildings with reference to the varied architectural traditions of their homelands. Some of the earliest settlement churches closely followed old-country traditions. Most churches, however, and especially later examples, employed a combination of Eastern European traditions with North American building technologies and western architectural influences. Read More

Ukrainian Houses

Like other immigrant groups who settled the rural areas of Manitoba, Ukrainian pioneers arriving in the last years of the 19th century relied on traditional building designs for the construction of their early homes. Two distinct regional variations have been identified in Manitoba. Settlers from Galicia, then a province of Austria, built houses that were typically small and unpretentious. Settlers from the neighbouring Austrian province of Bukovyna relied on traditional house designs that were often larger and more elaborate. Traditional house architecture was used until the 1930s, by which time most settlers had adapted their homes to Canadian building technologies and current North American architectural styles. Read More

Mennonite Housebarns

During the 1870s almost 8.000 German-speaking Mennonites (religious refugees from Czarist Russia) settled on two large land reserves in southern Manitoba. The new settlers recreated traditional farm-village communities in the new land and built traditional housebarns. A housebarn combined, in one long unit, family living quarters and an attached barn. By 1900 there were over 100 farm villages on the two reserves. Each village was laid out along a street usually a kilometre in length. The housebarns might be situated on one or both sides of the street, with a school and church located towards the village centre.  Read More

Pioneer Barns

Barns built in Manitoba before 1870 were crude one-storey log or even sod structures. The major settlement groups that opened the province during the 1880s and 90s -- Anglo-Ontarians, Quebeckers, Icelanders, Mennonites and Ukrainians -- introduced a variety of new barn designs and building technologies. Each of these groups produced structures that can be identified by their distinctive form and construction details. Most of these barns provided shelter for a variety of livestock -- horses and cattle primarily -- in a stable. Feed and hay for the livestock were stored in a loft, usually located above the stable. Read More