Grant Park is a neighbourhood in the River Heights area of southern

Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

. Its general boundaries are Grant Avenue to the north, Stafford Street to the east, the CNR Mainline to the south, and Cambridge Street to the west.http://clkapps.winnipeg.ca/dmis/viewpdf.asp?sectionid=344158

History

The Grant Park neighbourhood was one of the last areas in the former City of Winnipeg to develop. The land around what would become Grant Avenue—now one of Grant Park's most prominent streets—was first developed with the introduction of the Harte Subdivision for the

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway running from Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National ...

(later

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...

) in 1908. When the ground of the railway track sank between

Pembina Highway Route 42 is a major arterial road located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It connects the suburbs of North Kildonan, East Kildonan, Fort Rouge, Fort Garry, and St. Norbert with the city's downtown core. In the north, it is a continuation of Manito ...

and Cambridge Street, the builders had to refix it with cement, rocks, and gravel. This track was later declared surplus and sold to the City. The tracks were removed, the ground was redone, the street expanded to include a

service road A frontage road (also known as an access road, outer road, service road, feeder road, or parallel road) is a local road running parallel to a higher-speed, limited-access road. Where parallel high-speed roads are provided as part of a maj ...

and renamed Grant Avenue. From the early 1900s to 1960, some of the area along the rail line in present-day Grant Avenue became home to a

Métis The Métis ( , , , ) are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They ha ...

shanty town A shanty town, squatter area, squatter settlement, or squatter camp is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood, or from cheap building materials such as corrugated iron s ...

known as

Rooster Town Rooster Town was a Métis community in Manitoba, Canada, located in modern-day Winnipeg. This Métis settlement existed from the early 1900s to the late 1950s. The difficulty of procuring affordable housing close to other members of the Métis co ...

. At its peak in the 1930s, Rooster Town reached from Winnipeg's Stafford Street to Lindsay Street. Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, with the uniquely fast rate at which Winnipeg was suburbanizing, development on cheap land just north of Rooster Town lead to new homes beginning to infringe on Rooster Town territory. In 1949, the children of Rooster Town saw their first opportunity to receive an education, with the construction of Rockwood School in the northeast corner of the settlement. In the late 1950s, residents of Rooster Town were pressured to relocate their homes in order to make way for the construction of a new shopping centre, today's

Grant Park Shopping Centre Grant Park Shopping Centre (formerly Grant Park Plaza) is a 70-shop, nearly 400,000-square-foot shopping centre in the Grant Park area of southwest Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Located near the mall are Grant Park High School and the Pan-Am Poo ...

. In 1959, the remaining residents were evicted and their homes were burnt or torn down. Chiefly because of the presence of Rockwood School and

Grant Park High School Grant Park High School is a high school located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, that was founded in 1959. It is part of the Winnipeg School Division and teaches grades 7 to 12. History Grant Park High School is a grade 7–12 combined high sch ...

(opened in 1959), the neighbourhood around the schools became more organized. Finally, by the early 1960s, Rooster Town was absorbed by a new middle-class suburb of

ratepayer Rates are a type of property tax system in the United Kingdom, and in places with systems deriving from the British one, the proceeds of which are used to fund local government. Some other countries have taxes with a more or less comparable rol ...

s. In the late 1960s, construction for the Grant Park Shopping Centre complex was complete; it originally featured a

Woolco Woolco was an American-based discount retail chain. It was founded in 1962 in Columbus, Ohio, by the F. W. Woolworth Company. It was a full-line discount department store unlike the five-and-dime Woolworth stores which operated at the time. At ...

, Gambles,

Safeway Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops, and veh ...

, and

Dominion A dominion was any of several largely self-governance, self-governing countries of the British Empire, once known collectively as the ''British Commonwealth of Nations''. Progressing from colonies, their degrees of self-governing colony, colon ...

stores. The

Pan Am Pool The Pan Am Pool is an indoor swimming facility in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada built for the 1967 Pan American Games. It is located in Rockwood, Winnipeg, southwest Winnipeg and consists of three pools: two are used for competitive swimming and on ...

was also built during this time so that Winnipeg could host the

1967 Pan American Games The 1967 Pan American Games, officially known as the V Pan American Games () and commonly known as Winnipeg 1967, were held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, from July 23 to August 6, 1967. Winnipeg was chosen as host of the Pan American Games on ...

. Until 2006, Pan Am was home to the Canadian Aquatic Hall of Fame. Also around the same time that the shopping centre and pool were being constructed, various mid-rise and high-rise apartment buildings were being built. Some of the apartment blocks have undergone major interior and exterior renovations.

Demographics

As of the 2006 Census, the population of the Grant Park neighbourhood was 2,700 people, which grew to 2,725 by the 2016 Census. Nearly 40% of the population are a

visible minority In Canada, a visible minority () is defined by the Government of Canada as "persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour". The term is used primarily as a demographic category by Statistics Canada ...

, and 8% of them are Aboriginal. Almost 21% of the people are not affiliated with any religions. The average household income in the area is

CA$ The Canadian dollar (symbol: $; code: CAD; ) is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $. There is no standard disambiguating form, but the abbreviations Can$, CA$ and C$ are frequently used for distinction from other d ...

57,477.

Points of interest

* Manitoba Electrical Museum *

Manitoba Hydro The Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board (), operating as Manitoba Hydro, is the electric power and natural gas public utility, utility in the province of Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1961, it is a provincial Crown Corporation, governed by the Manitoba ...

, 820 Taylor Ave. * CN Mainline *Between 1976 and the mid-1990s, Winnipeg Videon had their administration and head offices located in the area, at 651 & 657 Stafford Street.

References

{{WinnipegNeighbourhoods Neighbourhoods in Winnipeg River Heights, Winnipeg

History

Demographics

Points of interest

See also

References