© 2026, Christian Cassidy
Place: Private residence
Address: 412 Salter Street
Built: 1893
Size: 529 Square Feet
This is a series on tiny houses in Winnipeg. This is one of the smallest you will find!
According to the city's assessment database, 412 Salter Street was built in 1893. Unfortunately, this makes it hard to track down its earliest inhabitants.
The outer reaches of the North End were still a work in progress at this time. Many Selkirk Settler river lots in the Parish of St. John's were early in the process of being sold off in chunks to speculators. It would take more than a decade for this land to start being formally subdivided by the city into proper residential streets that were aligned from block to block with boulevards, sidewalks and sewers.
The 1894 street directory shows seven houses, most unnumbered, on Salter Street from the CNR tracks to the city limits at Inkster. In 1899, that number grew to ten houses with two of them located between St. Johns and Anderson avenues. They were owned by Christopher Wilson and John Newby.
The following year, the houses are finally numbered, and Newby, occupation dairyman, is at 412.
The 1891 census shows a John Newby, dairyman, living on land in Ward 6 (the North End).
The Newby household consisted of John, 45, who was from England and came to Canada in 1877, his wife, Elizabeth, 38, from Ontario, and daughter, Margaret, 12. There is also one "domestic", most likely a farm hand, named William Cumming.
The Newby dairy farm was a small operation. An 1898 dairy inspection report notes that he had seven cows. In 1900, there were thirteen cows with a stable and milk house on the property. It appears that he sold his milk directly to customers, so there was likely a stable for a horse and wagon on the property as well.
As suburban development began to creep closer to his part of the West End, Newby put his dairy operation for sale, with the land certainly being more valuable than the business.
It appears he was successful, as the 1904 directory shows him as a farmer with a home at 633 Mulvey Avenue, (this was before the Mulvey Apartments were built on the site).
The next owner of the property was the Bennie family. James Bennie and his wife Lydia were from Ontario, and they had three children ranging in age from 2 to 21. There was also a "hired man", William Alexander from Scotland, living with them.
Bennie was a teamster and owned his own rig and horse team, so the extra land and outbuildings were needed. It appears that to make a little money, he sold some of the land as the houses at 408 Salter and 422 Salter were constructed in 1905.
Sadly, their eldest child, Alex, was killed in 1907 at the age of 22. He was a switchman on a train that was at the Vermillion, Alberta, CNR yard. He tripped over a switch while changing it, and a passing rail car ran over his leg and arm. He died soon after.
Alex was said to be "of good reputation and highly spoken of by his fellow employees on the road". His remains were returned to Winnipeg for burial.
The Binnies lived at the house until 1911. Classified ads show Mr. Bennie selling off his horse team and harnesses. The following year, he is listed as a carpenter, and the family had moved to St. James.
It was home to John Dunsta, gardener at St. John's College in 1912-13, painter George Hargreaves in 1914, CPR policeman Neil McFetridge in 1915, and from 1917-1919 it was home to Jean Lockwood while her husband, John William Lockwood, was off at war.
John Lockwood was a veteran of the Boer War and was a clerk at the Winnipeg General Hospital when he enlisted in May 1916 at the age of 34. Given his medical experience, he was assigned to No. 4 Casualty Clearing Station and served in France and Belgium. He made it through the war without being injured, though he spent months in a hospital in England soon after arriving with pleurisy, and another hospital stay to recover from influenza in 1917.
It's unclear if Lockwood saw much of 412 Salter. According to his attestation papers, the couple lived on Einarson Avenue when he enlisted. Handwritten notes in his service file show that Jean moved several times while he was overseas. When he was discharged in June 1920, the couple moved to Queen Street in St. James, and he resumed his job at the hospital.
October 25, 1934, Winnipeg Tribune
The short-term owners continued through the 1920s.
In 1931, Mr. Gertrude Cotte (or Catte) and her daughter Margaret moved in. She was a widow and had teenaged children, Margaret and Douglas. Margaret's 16th birthday was celebrated at the house. The Cottes remained until 1936.
Through the 1940s, this was home to Harold and Veronique Sinclair and their three children. Harold worked for the Winnipeg School Board as a school caretaker. It may have been Sinclair who sold off more of the property, as two more of the houses on the block were built in 1946 and 1948.
The home reverted back to short-term owners until 1956, when Mrs. Esther Greenberg moved in. Not a lot is known about Greenberg, as census data is not yet available for the 1950s, and she did not make the newspapers for any reason.
Greenberg lived there until at least 1964, which is when online versions of the street directory run out. (Manual copies can be seen at the Local History Room at the Millennium Library if someone wanted to trace residents up to 1999).
April 8, 1952, Winnipeg Free Press
This address does not appear in the newspapers in recent decades. There were a couple of "for sale" ads in the 1950s. It was described as a four room house with bath and hardwood floors and listed in 1952 for $4,300.
City records show that it sold in 2013 for $60,000, and the following year's Google Street View shows people mowing the front lawn.
By 2024, the house was abandoned. It's unclear if it had a fire or condition issues. It was most recently listed for sale in May 2025.
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