History of Winnipeg

In prehistory, through oral stories, archaeology, petroglyphs, rock art, and ancient artifacts, it is known that natives would use the area for camps, hunting, fishing, trading, and further north, agriculture.

The rivers provided transportation far and wide and linked many peoples-such as the Assiniboine, Ojibway, Anishinaabe, Mandan, Sioux, Cree, Lakota, and others—for trade and knowledge sharing.

The Hudson's Bay Company and British colonialists laid claim to the entire area of Rupert's Land in the late 17th century.

In 1811, the Scottish aristocrat and humanitarian Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, received from the Hudson's Bay Company a grant of 116,000 square miles in the basins of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, which he named Assiniboia.

The Red River Settlement was founded in 1812 and the construction of Fort Douglas was overseen by Miles Macdonell, Lord Selkirk's first Governor of Assiniboia, in 1813–14.

In the 1810s, the two companies fought fiercely for control of the fur trade in the area, and each destroyed some of the other's forts over the course of several violent skirmishes, like the Battle of Seven Oaks.

This new fort, constructed of stone, would remain the company's leading post until the collapse of the fur trade in the Red River region in the 1870s.

[4] Beginning in the early to mid-19th (the 1820s to 1840s) century the Métis, an ethnic group descended from the mixing of indigenous Canadians and European traders, began settling in the Red River Valley.

[7] Beginning in 1862, an unincorporated village began to form a short distance north of Fort Garry, near the present-day intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street.

[8] While open commercial trade that was independent of the Hudson's Bay Company had been occurring in the Red River settlement since the Sayer trial of 1849, this concentration of businesses near the intersection of Portage and Main would form the basis of a new urban centre.

[9] In 1869, the Hudson's Bay Company formally surrendered its charter rights over Rupert's Land, a territory that includes Winnipeg, back to the Crown.

Led by General Garnet Wolseley, and manned by British Army and Canadian militia units, the expedition was sent to quell the rebellion, and counter American settlers encroaching the Canada–United States border.

This small cluster of houses and commercial buildings near Portage and Main soon began to be referred to as "Winnipeg" by the locals, in order to differentiate themselves from the Hudson's Bay Company operations at Fort Garry.

With the decline of the fur trade at Red River and the growth of its urban centre, the Hudson's Bay Company created a plan of subdivision so it could sell off much of its vast reserve.

Built mainly of Tyndall Stone and opened in 1920, its dome supports a bronze statue finished in gold leaf titled, "Eternal Youth and the Spirit of Enterprise" (commonly known as the "Golden Boy").

For much of the 20th century, the North End was home to many religious, cultural, and economic institutions of the immigrant communities arriving from Eastern Europe.

[16] In 1904, the T. Eaton Company opened a new department store on Portage Avenue, several blocks west of the heart of Winnipeg's central business district.

[18] Winnipeg's rapid economic growth in the early 20th century was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, which sharply curtailed British financial investment and European immigration.

Following World War I, owing to a postwar recession, appalling labour conditions, and the presence of union organizers and a large influx of returning soldiers, 35,000 Winnipeggers walked off the job in May 1919 in what came to be known as the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.

As a way to calm the political waters, Winnipeg was the first city in Canada to use a form of proportional representation (Single transferable voting) to elect its MLAs, starting in 1920.

Despite population growth in Winnipeg's suburbs, the general urban structure established by 1914 remained largely in place; the downtown was the region's unchallenged centre for trade and finance, shopping, and entertainment.

[25] In Winnipeg, the established armouries of Minto, Tuxedo (Fort Osborne), and McGregor were so crowded that the military had to take over other buildings to increase capacity.

In 1942, the Government of Canada's Victory Loan Campaign staged a mock Nazi invasion of Winnipeg to increase awareness of the stakes of the war in Europe.

Premier Douglas Campbell called for federal assistance, and Canadian Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent declared a state of emergency.

In the 1960s, Winnipeg was home to an active rock n' roll scene, which would launch the notable careers of Neil Young and The Guess Who.

During this era, few night clubs would book rock groups, so local bands would play at dances held in community halls.

Throughout the recession, the city incurred closures of prominent businesses such as the Winnipeg Tribune and the Swift's and Canada Packers meat packing plants.

The funding was instrumental in attracting Portage Place mall, which comprises the headquarters of Investors Group, the offices of Air Canada, and several apartment complexes.

In 1989, the reclamation and redevelopment of the CNR rail yards at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers turned The Forks into Winnipeg's most popular tourist attraction.

On January 5, 1874, Francis Evans Cornish, former mayor of London, Ontario, defeated Winnipeg Free Press editor and owner William F. Luxton by a margin of 383 votes to 179.