Source: Google Street View
Place: Panama Court
Address: 785 Dorchester Avenue (Map)
Opened: July 1913
Architect: Hooper and Davis (John Hooper)
Contractor: Unknown
Panama Court was one of a number of upper-middle class apartment blocks constructed in the city between 1910 and 1913 as Winnipeg's middle class swelled during its greatest boom years.
Its developer, William W. Colledge, first appears in local street directories as a business partner of Thomas Sharpe in the contracting firm Sharpe and Colledge. By 1910, Colledge was working solo and in 1914 moved on to Vancouver.
The architect of Panama Court was John S. Hooper, the son of Manitoba's first Provincial Architect Samuel Hooper. The younger Hooper tended to work under his father's wing and there are only around ten building designs credited to him. Most are higher-end apartment blocks and all were designed in the couple of years after his father's death. (See below for more about John Hooper.)
The building's name was surely inspired by the Panama Canal which was in the news on almost a daily basis during its construction in 1912 - 1913.
Under construction, April 19, 1913, Winnipeg Free Press
Panama Court initially contained 26 units. These ranged from three room suites up to more generous six-room suites with quarters for maids or nannies.
The building was touted in rental ads as being "absolutely fireproof". This was because the walls, interior partitions and even the floors were constructed of tile rather than wood. Another selling feature was its access to fresh air owing to the fact that each suite had its own balcony.
The interiors were finished to a high standard with mahogany detail, fireplaces and refrigerators. It was also a "soft water building". (In the pre-Shoal Lake Aqueduct days the city's central water supply was drawn from a series of large wells. If one wanted soft water, it had to be treated after it reached the building and kept in a cistern located on-site.)
July 15, 1913, Winnipeg Free Press
The occupations of the heads of households of the first batch of Panama Court tenants shows what you might expect from a building of this stature.
They included: Frank Adams, general manager of Adams Bros. Harness Manufacturing Co.; Frederick Banks, an insurance inspector; Harold Brockwell, chief engineer for Manitoba Government Telephones; John Gage, vice president of International (grain) Elevator Co.; John Garland of the law firm Garland and Anderson; Leslie Head, a manager at Head and Shannon lumber yard; George Lawson, an accountant with S. T. Handscombe brokerage; Charles Kelly of Kelly and Sons Construction; Gordon A. Millar, assistant department manager at Eatons; John A Nelson, manager of The Traders real estate firm; and Robert Grant, assistant editor of the Farmers' Advocate newspaper.
William Mallon was the building’s first live-in caretaker and lived in suite 10.
The building appears to have had a quiet existence. There are no newspaper stories about fires or major crimes taking place there. Even in wartime, though some residents served overseas they all appear to have survived. What it did have was countless wedding and baby showers, society teas, small recitals, etc.
Here are some of the more notable early tenants of Panama Court:
Charles B. Kelly
December 16, 1913, Winnipeg Tribune
Charles B. Kelly of the Thomas Kelly and Sons construction company was amongst the first tenants of Panama Court in suite 22. Though the firm had many great achievements during its existence it will always be remembered for the Legislature building scandal.
Kelly and Sons won the 1913 construction contract for the Legislature. It turns out that Thomas Kelly systematically overbilled the provincial government for the company's work and substituted inferior quality materials wherever possible. When this was discovered, construction was immediately halted.
Thomas Kelly fled to Chicago to avoid arrest but was captured and extradited back to Winnipeg to face trial. The Crown alleged that the total value of his fraud amounted to $1.2 million, (about $27 million in today's dollars.) Much of that money was funneled back to the ruling provincial Conservative party's coffers and to select government officials.
August 15, 1916, Winnipeg Free Press
In the end, the Roblin government fell due to the scandal and Thomas Kelly was sentenced to 2 1/2 years at Stoney Mountain, though he got out early for good behavior. The partially built Legislature's contract was re-awarded to a new company and construction was started almost from scratch due to the questionable quality of the foundation work.
It appears that Charles Kelly was not charged with any crime. He moved from Panama Court to an apartment at 19 Carlton Street the following year and died there of pneumonia in 1920 at the age of 33. (Perhaps a holdover from the "Spanish" influenza epidemic of 1918 - 1919?)
Annie McClung
Anne Elizabeth "Annie" McClung, a pioneer in Manitoba's earliest temperance and suffrage movements, lived at Panama Court from the time her husband died in 1916 until her death in 1926 at the age of 85. She resided with her daughter, Mrs. Percy Anderson, and family.
In 1890, McClung and her husband, Reverend James A. McClung, came from their native Ontario and soon settled in Manitou.
From the late 1890s through the 19-teens, McClung was a member of the executive, often president, of the Manitoba chapter of the Western Christian Temperance Union. She was made a lifetime honourary president in 1920.
An example of her commitment to helping women: McClung and her husband happened to be in San Fransisco at the time of its great earthquake in 1906. She did not, as one might expect, flee the city after the disaster. Instead, she stayed behind to work on behalf of women and children who were made homeless.
May 5, 1907, Winnipeg Free Press
In 1892, a young woman named Nellie Moodey came to Manitou to teach at the local school and lodged at the McClung house. She and McClung's eldest son, Wesley, fell in love and were soon married.
Nellie McClung would no doubt have met some of the leaders of the women's movement of the day, such as Dr. Amelia Yeomans, through her mother-in-law. Nellie also credits Annie McClung with prompting her to submit a short story to Colliers magazine in 1900. This became her first published work and launched a writing career that gave her a national voice.
Annie McClung's achievements are now little more than a footnote in her daughter-in-law's success, but to an earlier generation of Manitobans she was one of the most formidable forces of the province's early women's movement.
Marjorie Barrack-Beliveau
February 10, 1923, Winnipeg Tribune
Violinist Marjorie Barrack began making name for herself in 1910, around age fourteen, as one of the most promising young students of local music teacher Camille Couture. That year, she began appearing in regular recitals and small concerts around town.
In 1914, she spent the summer in Dresdin, Germany as a student of Leopold von Auer.
Barrack-Beliveau singned a deal in 1920 with the Orpheum Theatre chain to be part of a vaudeville show that toured their theatre circuit through Western Canada and the U.S.. Though vaudeville was waning as an entertainment form thanks to the growing popularity of film, Orpheum was trying to keep it alive by offering a "more refined and artistic" level of entertainment.
The following year came another Orpheum tour. Barrack left in September 1921 on a 20-week engagement that took her as far south as Sacramento, California. The headliner for part of that tour was Helen Keller. (The two kept in touch by letter.)
September 23, 1922, Winnipeg Tribune
Upon her return from the 1921 tour Barrack-Beliveau settled into apartment 20 of Panama Court. She divided her time between local performances and teaching from her suite. In 1923, it appears she was off on another tour and stayed in the U.S. for an extended period.
For such a well known public figure little was written about Barrack-Beliveau's private life. She married Antoine Beliveau in Winnipeg in 1916 and may have married a second time in 1928, though kept Barrack-Beliveau as her stage name.
Every few years, Barrack-Beliveau appears back in the city, teaches for a while, then seems to disappear again. She likely died in 1971.
Albert V. Hodges
Hodges was a veteran of the First World War and a member of the Old Contemptibles, a fraternal society of British soldiers who fought at Flanders in 1914. In fact, Hodges was long-time president of the small local chapter and his wife was chair of its Ladies' Auxiliary. Their suite was host to many teas, executive meetings and charity whist tournaments related to the organization.
In late July 1933, Hodges was on an outing with a fellow Old Contemptible, 47-year-old constable Henry Portman of the Winnipeg Police Department. The two were fishing near Seven Sisters Falls when Portman slipped off a rock and into the river.
Hodges, a strong swimmer, jumped into the water to save him. He almost drowned as the current washed him up onto the rocks. After gathering himself on shore Hodges tried a second rescue. This time, the current pulled the pants off his torso and he had to be rescued by an onlooker who held out a pole.
Portman drowned that afternoon, but Hodges was hailed as a hero for risking his life twice to try to save him.
Dr. M. Stuart Fraser
October 30, 1918, Winnipeg Tribune
One of Fraser's first acts was to establish a team of public health nurses to visit rural schools. The aim was to alleviate the needless suffering of children from diseases that could be prevented through a better understanding of good hygiene and sanitation. The program eventually fanned out across the province and was considered a Canadian public health first.
During the "Spanish" Influenza outbreak of 1918 - 19, Fraser provided daily press updates on the number of cases and deaths in the province. In October 1918, his department issued a proclamation ordering the province-wide closure of all gathering places - schools, theatres, halls and even churches - for a period of weeks until the epidemic waned.
Widowed in 1910, Fraser moved to suite 22 of Panama Court in 1923 and relocated to suite 11 in the early 1940s. He was made an Honourary Life Member of the Canadian Public Health Association after his retirement in 1931.
Fraser died October 26, 1949 at the age of 89 at Winnipeg General Hospital.
More about John Simpson Hooper:
John S. Hooper worked with his father in his architecture firms, but it seems that he preferred the challenges of the family business, Hooper Marble and Granite. The company had an important role in city's construction industry providing material for countless building facades, hallways, lobbies, monuments and gravestones.
In the 1907 street directory John Hooper is listed as the company's manager and when the Winnipeg Builders Exchange was created in 1910 he joined it a "marble contractor" rather than an architect.
Hooper was also a player in the city's building industry through a variety of organizations. He was an executive member of the Builder's Exchange into the early 1920s. He was also at times on the executive of the Winnipeg chapter of the Association of Building and Construction Industries and the Winnipeg Building Owners Association.
In the 1930s, Hooper seemed to drift from the family business and worked for other companies. In 1931, for instance, he was an architect with the CPR. In 1938 -39 he was a building inspector for construction company Northwood and Chivers. He also did a stint working as a city building inspector.
As for his personal life, Hooper married Margaret Bell of Dominion City in 1899 and they had three daughters. Hooper was working in Red Deer, Alberta when he died on August 7, 1940 at the age of 65. His body was returned to Winnipeg and he was buried at St. John's Cathedral Cemetery.
impressive research....
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