University of Winnipeg - The Early Days

The above picture is from 1926 and shows the present University of Winnipeg Collegiate and behind it Sparling Hall. In the time of the photo, it the building fronting Portage Avenue was Wesley College. The building was built in 1894-95 and is one of the Canada's historic buildings and remains an integral part of the University of Winnipeg campus. The building behind is Sparling Hall but at time of construction was called the Annex. It took the name of J.W. Sparling, the founding principal of Wesley College. He would die the year Sparling Hall was built.

Portage Avenue was not very busy with cars in 1926. The stretch of retail on the north side consisted book stores, pharmacists, hardware stores and the like. Angle parking was the norm on the street. Streetcar lines are in the middle of the road.

Wesley College's founding was 1888 and several students were taught in Grace Church till money was raised and construction began on property that was acquired on Portage Avenue. Manitoba College, Wesley College's some time competitor/sometime partner was founded in 1871 and in 1882, built on Ellice Street, kitty corner to what would be Wesley College 12 years later. Manitoba College would eventually be sold to St. Paul's College when Manitoba finally joined Wesley College. The site presently is home to under utilized research laboratories of the National Research Council built in 1985 with a second lab built later 2006.

The former Manitoba College in 1932 which St. Paul's High school beside. The buildings would gall to the wrecking ball in 1964 after St. Paul's College went to the Fort Garry Campus of the University of Manitoba and St. Paul High School would go to Charleswood. The land thereafter law fallow for decades.

The picture above shows the United College (Manitoba and Wesley Colleges) in 1948 right in the middle along Portage Avenue. The Hudson Bay Company store built in 1926 in seen on the right side. Immediately above on the top of the picture are the grounds of St. Paul's College and St. Paul's High School (formerly Manitoba College).

United College shows an enormous field behind it that was used for a variety of sports such a soccer and football. It also had a baseball diamond.

Here is the field looking northward from Wesley College in the 1920s. Quite the baseball game going going on.