Address: 795 Main Street (Map)
Built: 1894
Contractor: Unknown
Architect: Unknown
Top: George Craig ca. 1904
Below: March 6, 1896, Manitoba Free Press
The Craig Block at 795 Main Street was constructed in 1894 for merchant George Craig. Born and raised in Ontario, he came to Portage la Prairie in 1881 and established his first store. This was followed by a second store in Brandon the following year. By 1888, he closed both of them to set up shop in Winnipeg.
The George Craig Co., located at Main Street and James Avenue, was one of the first and largest department stores in early Winnipeg.
Construction on the Craig Block got underway in the fall of 1894. A Tribune story from October noted: “The new building being put up by Mr. Craig begins to show a substantial appearance and will assuredly give an improved appearance to the portion of the city in which it is located."
The building contained a main floor retail unit and an upstairs that alternated over the decades between warehouse space, offices, a meeting hall, and sometimes even a residential suite.
Top: Harrison Bros. 1895. Source U of W Archives, WCPI 21323
Bottom: December 17, 1895, Winnipeg Free Press
Bottom: December 17, 1895, Winnipeg Free Press
Craig did not move his original store to his new building. Instead, the Craig Block was a rental property.
The first retailer to call the main floor home was Rayner and Company Grocers. By 1898, it was the North End Furniture House. The Harrison Brothers Drug Store occupied the space from 1899 to 1902, followed by S. Elliot and Co. Grocers.
The retail space became a restaurant in 1912. From 1912 to 1916, it was the Casivilla Restaurant, and by 1916, it was The Rex, a Chinese food place.
Top: Maier Calof ca. 1940s (source)
Bottom: December 20, 1925, Winnipeg Tribune
The Provincial Produce Company, a fruit retailer and wholesaler, took over the building in 1917.
The company was founded by Maier Calof, who came to Manitoba in 1879 and soon opened a grocery store in Winkler. By 1907, he relocated to Winnipeg and opened a grocery store on Machray Avenue, then a livestock feed store on Selkirk Avenue.
After a brief foray into the hotel business in Alberta, Calof returned to Winnipeg and founded the Provincial Produce Company in April 1917. (For more about Calof.)
Railway Porters (Canadian Museum for Human Rights)
The Craig Block began its long association with Winnipeg's Black community in the early 1920s as the upstairs office space became home to the local office of the Order of Sleeping Car Porters.
Established in Winnipeg in 1917 by John A. Robinson, J.W. Barber, B.F. Jones and P. White, it is considered to be Canada’s first Black labour union and North America’s first Black railway union, as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was created in New York City in 1925.
The union is not mentioned in street directories before setting the Craig Block, so it is unclear where its original office was.
September 6, 1919, Winnipeg Tribune
At a national meeting in Montreal in August 1919, its membership voted to move the union's headquarters to that city "to be closer to the centre of railway activity". It may also have been fallout for joining the May 1919 Winnipeg General Strike without first informing the national membership.
Though this wasn't the national headquarters anymore, Winnipeg was still an important railway hub and hundreds of porters would have relied on the office being here.
At the time the Order of Sleeping Car Porters opened their office in the Craig Block, its president was Charles E. Johnson of 2-256 Jarvis Street and Ella M. Burns of 3-213 1/2 Jarvis Street was the secretary.
The union was joined by a branch office of the U.S.-based Universal Negro Improvement Association. Also, the short-lived Railway Porters' Band of Winnipeg, said to be the largest "coloured band" in Western Canada, used the upstairs hall for its practices.
As the 1920s wore on, Maier's health suffered and two of his sons took larger roles at the store. In 1928, they moved Provincial Produce to a newly built warehouse on "Fruit Row", a nickname for Ross Avenue.
The building was now truly a one-stop shop for porters living or stopping over in Winnipeg.
The Porters' Social and Charitable Association was created in 1932, and it took over the management of the upstairs hall and possibly the entire building. It may have also run the pool room until the late 1940s.
In 1952, the name of the Unity Pool Room changed to the Liberty Pool Room, which was jointly owned by Lawrence Lewsey, Lionel West and Edward Bailey. (Lewsey was also a local musician and porter.) In 1960, the Liberty Pool Room and Lunch was owned by Emma Bowen.
Another organization that used the hall in the 1930s and likely beyond was Regent Lodge No. 5. It was a branch of Minnesota's Prince Hall Lodge, the Black division of the Masons.
Craig Block, ca. 2012
The union offices relocated in 1961, leaving only the Porters Charitable and Social Association upstairs. The name of the organization later changed to the Colored People's Social and Charitable Association and remained in that space until at least 1987.
As for the downstairs, in 1962, the pool room became Fern's Lunch which was run by Mrs. R. Maksymyk. By 1965, John and Ann Barbolak were the proprietors. Fern's closed in 1972.
Since then, the retail space has been home to Farmers' Supply Ltd. and Dimensional Plastics. The building was renovated in 2014 and put up for sale in 2020-2021. It is now home to Ma's Fishing and Sporting Goods.
UPDATE 2025: The Craig Building was damaged by fire and water in the January 2025 Sutherland Hotel fire. It is unclear of the building can be salvaged.
For more of my posts and columns celebrating Manitoba's Black history!
this was a cool find! Lawrence Lewsey was my grandfather and Im happy to learn more about him. Thank You
ReplyDeleteWow, what a wonderful addition to my family history. John Nealy was my grandfather!
ReplyDeleteIs anyone planning on doing anything with this building? The black history of this building really be saved.
ReplyDelete