© 2022, Christian Cassidy
Place: Kane Equipment Ltd. / City of Winnipeg Public Works Yard
Address: 1539 Waverley Street (Map)
Constructed: 1969
Architect: Unknown
March 18, 1944, Regina Leader Post
The first urban address for this piece of land came in 1966 as headquarters for Walter J. Kane's Kane Equipment Ltd..
Born at Conshohocken, Pennsylvania in 1892, Kane took an early interest in horses and worked on several ranches in the U.S. and Canada before joining the rodeo circuit. From 1916 to 1917, he was the world champion bucking horse rider. He then served in a cavalry division of the U.S. Army in World War I.
Kane and his wife Enid settled on a 600-acre farm near Winnipeg soon after the war.
June 11, 1938, Winnipeg Tribune
In 1924, Kane began a contracting business that built roads and highways in rural Manitoba. The company was renamed Kane Tractor and Equipment Ltd. after it relocated to 701 Henry Street in Winnipeg in 1938. It also changed its focus to be a heavy equipment dealership that supplied municipalities and the construction, logging, and mining industries.
Kane's company boomed along with the post-war expansion of suburban municipalities and the province's road network.
1938 Vox Fluminis, Riverbend School (Balmoral Hall) yearbook
Horses were Kane's passion. Along with the construction company he operated the Cambridge Riding Club on Cambridge Street where he also raised and trained his championship horses.
The Cambridge Riding Club turned out many riding and jumping champions. This included Bouncing Buster featured in this 1951 Canadian Cattlemen article that concluded, "It is probably safe to say that Buster won more first prizes than any jumping horse in Canada".
Kane was in demand throughout the prairies as a judge for horse shows and rodeo competitions. He was made a life member of the Horsemen's Club.
In 1958, Kane sold his construction company and continued to concentrate on his horses, though by this time Cambridge Street appears to have been replaced with suburban development. He branched out into breeding cattle and at the 1963 Brandon Winter Fair won most of the Hereford awards, including supreme champion futurity bull.
Walter Kane died 1972 and is buried at Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
The man who bought out Kane was Hugh T. Macdonald. He had worked in the heavy equipment industry since the 1920s and by the 1950s was Kane Equipment's vice president.
Like Kane, Macdonald also had a keen interest in horses and raised many champions, including the grand champion hackney mare at the 1963 Toronto Winter Fair. When Manitoba created its first Manitoba Horseracing Commission in 1965, he was one of three commissioners.
Kane Equipment continued to grow and by the end of the 1950s took up the entire block of 667 to 701 Henry Avenue.
In January 1960, it expanded into general contractors' supply business and
opened a retail outlet on Erin Street called Kane Equipment Commercial
Division with branches in Brandon, Dauphin, Minnedosa, The Pas and eventually some communities in Saskatchewan.
June 17, 1969, Winnipeg Free Press
By the 1960s, Kane Equipment needed a larger site and in April 1966 it announced that it had bought a 12-acre plot at Waverley Street and Chevrier Boulevard. It began advertising its new location in October.
The main building on the site opened in early 1969. It is unclear who the architect was. (You can see the building in the background of the photo in the above advertisement.)
The original building was 45,000 square feet in size and featured 26-foot-tall ceilings and 11 large bay doors. A brief mention of the building in the Free Press described it as having "spacious and bright
areas, tastefully furnished offices, a conference room, central kitchen,
and air conditioning."
February 2, 1981, Winnipeg Free Press
Peter Macdonald took over the company from his father in 1972 and faced a very different construction market than his predecessors.
The heady days of post-war development were over. The 1970s brought austerity, high interest rates, and a troubled economy. The industries Kane Equipment served were hit hard by the economy and municipalities cut back their infrastructure work.
Macdonald tried to find additional financing and event tried to sell off the company in the late 1970s, but with few signs that the economy was about to rebound the writing was on the wall. In February 1981 he announced that the company would wind down
operations and told the Free Press, "the economy is getting worse and worse and the company
can no longer stay in business."
The closure meant the layoff of 40 employees in Manitoba
and another 40 in Saskatchewan.
Peter MacDonald died in 2014.
The demise of Kane Equipment came at around the same time the city was in the market for a works yard i the south end of the city.
Its District 6 Operations Department yard on Markham Road suffered a major fire in December 1981 that destroyed five vehicle bays full of equipment. A replacement had to be found by the following winter.
The civic finance committee recommended to city council in August 1982 that it purchase the Kane Equipment site. The building and land was advertised at $2.37 million but it was believed the company would take $2 million for it. The additional office space was large enough to also house the district's parks and recreation offices.
The city acted on the recommendation and the building became home to the District 6 Operations Department.
In 1986, a tender was awarded to Moody Moore Partners to redesign the interior space and expand the service bay area. Michael Rattray and Helmut Peters were the lead architects on the project.
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