The Vulcan Iron Works was a key part of the Winnipeg General Strike, but the effects of the industrial building are still felt today
At one time, it was full of hundreds of workers, some of whom were involved in the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.
But as the historic Vulcan Iron Works building burned on Tuesday, sending dark smoke plumes over Winnipeg’s Point Douglas neighborhood and burning an area as long as a football field, historians said the story of the industrial complex is more complicated than that.
On the one hand, it was a “flashpoint” leading up to the strike, which was an important part of Canada’s labor history, and a sign of Western Canada’s industrial growth, said Roland Sawatzky, curator of history at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg.
“Pieces made at the Vulcan Iron Works can still be seen in older buildings all over this city. “They are like the bones on which the city is built,” he said.
But in the decades since the company left the Point Douglas building for another location, it has mostly been empty and “left to decay,” according to Cindy Tugwell, the executive director of Heritage Winnipeg.
WATCH | An old building in Point Douglas is on fire:
It was also an industrial activity that was thought to have made the soil in the area less healthy.contaminated with leadShe said, in amounts that go over national safety guidelines.
“The Vulcan Iron Works company was very important to Winnipeg for jobs, the railroad, and everything it made,” Tugwell said. “Unfortunately, it caused a lot of other problems in the area that are still going on today.”
“I think the main point of this story is that it has hurt Point Douglas ever since.”
Jordan Van Sewell has lived in Point Douglas for a long time. He said it made him sad to see a building so important to Winnipeg’s history burn down after being ignored for years. He said that things like this happening in his neighborhood aren’t the problem—they’re just signs of a bigger problem.
Van Sewell, who has lived in Point Douglas for 35 years, said, “People have been through so much pain that it’s easy to see how hopeless they are.”
“Every day, something happens, like a fire on the riverbank or a response to, like, the homeless crisis.”
Once a ‘hive of activity
Sawatzky said that when the Vulcan Iron Works foundries and workshops, which were built in the late 1800s, were at their busiest, the area was “a hive of activity,” with workers making everything from building materials to equipment for grain elevators out of metal.
Its location near the CP Rail shipping yard was also important to its success during “Winnipeg’s first big industrial boom,” and it changed the area a lot as people moved there to work on the railroads and in the metal factories.
By the 1910s, it was already taking part in the events that led up to the Winnipeg General Strike.
Sawatzky said that’s when people at Vulcan Iron Works started to want to join a union. It was clear to them that they worked in bad conditions and made less money than their coworkers at the railroad station or rail yard.
But in the 1960s and 1970s, the company moved its operations farther north, and the building stopped being used as a foundry. Sawatzky said that in the years since, most people have forgotten how important it was to Winnipeg’s history.
“There’s a lot of history there, but because of where it is, a lot of people don’t really see it.”
Explore the outside of the historic Winnipeg building from every angle:
Present day concern
In recent years, soil tests in Point Douglas showed potentially dangerous levels of lead, said Tugwell. This is a reminder of the area’s history as an industrial center.
No one thing was found to be the cause of the contamination, but a report based on tests done in 2007 and 2008 said that the use of leaded gas in the past, a number of now-closed lead smelters, scrap recycling yards, rail yards, and metal manufacturing operations could have been to blame.
Tugwell said that when Vulcan Iron Works moved out of its Point Douglas building, it sat empty and became an eyesore in a town that was already having trouble before it burned down.
She said, “The people of Point Douglas don’t deserve to have an old industrial building that might be contaminated sitting in their neighborhood for decades.”
“I don’t think something like this could happen in the south of the city. But because it’s Point Douglas, they have to deal with another burned-out building that is now empty.
Historians say that the building should be remembered
Sawatzky thinks that more needs to be done to protect buildings with a lot of history, like the one where Vulcan Iron Works used to be.
But Tugwell said that even though she thinks it shouldn’t have been left to fall apart for decades, she’s not sure the building would have been a good candidate for heritage designation.
“This is an old building that has made a huge impact on Winnipeg’s social history. Is it a building from the past? She said, “I don’t think so.”
“The Vulcan Iron Works is a very important part of Winnipeg’s history. But I think it had run its course.”
But both historians agree that the building’s history should be remembered in some way, even though the building is no longer there.
Sawatzky said that could include talking about putting up a plaque or monument that tells the story of Vulcan Iron Works and what role it played in Winnipeg’s history.
He said, “I don’t think it should all be lost.”
Van Sewell, a resident of Point Douglas, said he hopes people start to pay attention to what’s going on in the neighborhood. He said the area has turned into “a series of chain link fences” with trash blown up against them.
“When people drive by here, I’m sure they think, ‘Oh my God, this is a tragedy,’ and they’re right,” he said.
“It’s where Winnipeg started, but it’s been ignored to the point where I wonder if anyone outside of this street really cares.”