Winnipeg then and now: See how city's appearance has changed over 150 years
CBC
The year Winnipeg became a city, it was marked by a handful of clapboard buildings and wood-plank sidewalks that flanked mud roads.
When soaked by prairie rains, the roads morphed into a thick sludge that ravaged cart wheels and footwear.
Persistent rains carved gullies that drained into the Red and Assiniboine rivers, but also several creeks and coulees that no longer exist —including one that scuttled the first city hall.
When the Manitoba Legislature passed the act that officially made Winnipeg a city on Nov. 8, 1873, there were just 1,869 residents.
Few buildings reached as high as three storeys, leaving a vast landscape stretching unremittingly to where the horizon curved with the earth.
The new city looked more like the movie set for a Hollywood western than an urban centre.
The mud roads are why Portage Avenue and Main Street are so expansive today — carts pulled by animals had to continually bypass deep ruts, constantly widening the paths.
"That's wild, man. That's wild," said pedestrian Emilio McLennon, when shown an 1874 image of Winnipeg while standing on the same spot in March 2024.
"Things have changed, man. Crazy."
Winnipeg's first civic election was held Jan. 5, 1874, establishing the inaugural city council.
Mayor Francis Evans Cornish and 12 councillors (called aldermen at the time) held their first meeting later that month, which is why the city has historically commemorated 1874 as its anniversary year.
That founding crew of councillors oversaw a city whose footprint was just five square kilometres.
The southern and eastern boundaries were marked by the Red and Assiniboine rivers. The western edge was Maryland Street, and Burrows Avenue defined the northern limit.
"If you could somehow bring somebody back from that time period to now, and standing on this spot, they would see almost nothing that they recognized," Gordon Goldsborough, head researcher of the Manitoba Historical Society, said while standing on Main Street, midway between two spots cited as birthplaces of Winnipeg — Upper Fort Garry and the intersection of Portage and Main.
