Historical symbol or community blight? Winnipeg building lost to fire had complex past, experts say

At one time, it was bustling with hundreds of workers who would help spark the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.

But as the storied Vulcan Iron Works building burned on Tuesday sending plumes of dark smoke up over Winnipeg's Point Douglas neighbourhood in a blaze that covered an area as longas a football field historians said the story of the industrial complexis more complicated than that.

On one hand, it was part of a "flashpoint" moment leading up to the strike which played a key role in Canada's labour history and a symbol of Western Canada's industrial development, said Roland Sawatzky, curator of history at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg.

"There are pieces made at the Vulcan Iron Works that are still all around us in the older buildings in this city. They sort of form the skeleton that the city is based on," he said.

But in the decades since the company vacated the Point Douglas building for another location, it has sat largely unused and "left to decay," said Cindy Tugwell, executive director of Heritage Winnipeg.

WATCH | Fire burns at historic Point Douglas building:

Drone shows industrial building on Sutherland Avenue still smouldering

1 year ago

Duration 0:53

Fire crews poured water on a fire in Point Douglas that broke out early on the morning of Tuesday, July 4, 2023. When firefighters arrived, there were flames and dense smoke coming from the building at the corner of Sutherland Avenue and Maple Street. It covers a full city block and was filled with tires, propane tanks and vehicles.

It was also part of the industrial activitythought to have contributed to soil in the area being contaminated with lead in amounts that exceednational safety guidelines, she said.

"The Vulcan Iron Works company was very important to Winnipeg for employment, for the railway, for everything that [it] produced but unfortunately it led to a lot of other problems in the area that still exist today," Tugwell said.

"I think the story here is arguably that it has led to the detriment of Point Douglas ever since."

Longtime Point Douglas resident Jordan Van Sewell said he was saddened to see a building so important to Winnipeg's history go up in flames after being neglected for years. These kinds of incidents in his neighbourhood aren't the problem, he said but a symptom of a larger issue.

"People have suffered to the point where the hopelessness is evident around here," said Van Sewell, who has lived in Point Douglas for 35 years.

"Every day there's an incident, whether it's a fire on the riverbank here or it's a response to, you know, [the] homeless crisis."

Once a 'hive of activity'

In its heyday, the more than three-block complex of Vulcan Iron Works foundries and workshops built in the late 1800s was "a hive of activity," withworkers manufacturing metal products ranging from construction materials to grain elevator equipment, Sawatzky said.

Its placement near the CP Rail shipping yard was also a crucial part of its success during "Winnipeg's first big industrial boom," and it played a large role in the area's transformation as people moved there for jobs on the railroads and in the metal factories.

Its involvement in the leadup to the Winnipeg General Strike began by the 1910s.

That's when a desire to unionize started to bubble up as it became obvious to those employed at Vulcan Iron Works that they worked in poor conditions and made less money than those working beside them at the railway station orrail yard, Sawatzky said.

But by the 1960s and '70s, the company was moving its operations further north and the building stopped operating as a foundry. In the intervening years, its central role in Winnipeg's history became largely forgotten, Sawatzky said.

"There's a lot of history there, but a lot of people don't really see it because of its location."

Explore a 360-degree exterior view of the historic Winnipeg building:

Present day concerns

In more recent years, residents in Point Douglas have learned soil tests in their neighbourhood showed potentially dangerous levels of lead, Tugwell said serving as a reminder of the area's industrial history.

While the source of the contamination was not attributed to any one factor, a report stemming from tests done in 2007 and 2008 said possible causes of contamination in Winnipeg are historic use of leaded gas, a number of now-shuttered lead smelters, scrap recycling yards, rail yards and metal manufacturing operations.

Meanwhile, after Vulcan Iron Works moved out of its Point Douglas building, the structure sat vacant and became an eyesore in an already struggling community before it burned down, Tugwell said.

"The residents of Point Douglas don't deserve to have an abandoned industrial building that could be contaminated sitting in their area for decades," she said.

"This wouldn't be allowed, I don't believe, to happen in the south part of the city. But because it's Point Douglas, they're faced again with another charred, vacant building."

Building should be commemorated: historians

Sawatzky thinks more needs to be done to protect historically significant buildings like the one that was once home to Vulcan Iron Works.

But Tugwell said while she thinks it shouldn't have been allowed to deteriorate for decades, she's not so sure the building would have been a contender for heritage designation.

"This is an old building that had an immense contribution to the social history [of Winnipeg]. Is it a heritage building? I don't think so," she said.

"Vulcan Iron Works is very critical to the history of Winnipeg. But I think its time was over."

But both historians agree there should be some kind of commemoration of the building's history, even though the structure itself is no longer standing.

Sawatzky said that could involve discussions about putting up a plaque or monument to tell passersby the story of Vulcan Iron Works and the role it played in Winnipeg's history.

"I don't think it should be entirely lost," he said.

As for the state of the neighbourhood itself, Point Douglas resident Van Sewell said he hopes people start paying attention to what's happening to the area, which he said has become "a series of chain link fences" with garbage blown up against them.

"I'm sure people that drive past here think, 'Oh my God, this is a tragedy.' And it is," he said.

"It's the cradle of Winnipeg and it's just been ignored to the point where, does anybody really care outside of the street here?"