History of the Grain Exchange Building

Manitoba and the Canadian West, last of the great agricultural frontiers, were coming into their own... The world, it soon became apparent after 1897, would buy all the wheat Manitoba farmers could grow, and would loan all the money Manitobans could spend on the development of the provinces re-sources. (1)

With those lines, historian W.L. Morton summarized the wheat boom of 1897 to 1912 that transformed Manitoba into a world agricultural producer.

Wheat was prairie gold. It's significance was first discovered by the Selkirk Settlers, who, despite various setbacks, eventually experienced the rich abundance of the prairie soil. Over time, their subsistence farms were able to produce surplus grain for processing at small local mills. Because the isolated community lacked access to a buying market, however, this extra grain did not generate any revenue for the producer. That development had to await the gradual establishment of steamboat, then railway links to the United States and eastern Canada during the 1860's to early 1880's. These links, in turn, encouraged the inbound movement of new settlers and the outflow of grain exports.

Realizing the potential for a great trade in grain, a group of Winnipeg businessmen formed the Winnipeg Grain and Produce Exchange in 1887. Prominent local men such as Daniel McMillan, Nicholas Bawlf, George Galt and Rodman Roblin formed the executive of the fledgeling Exchange, which operated from a basement room in City Hall. In 1892, the organization moved into the first Grain Exchange Building, built by Nicholas Bawlf of Bawlf Grain, at 164 Princess Street. (2) That facility became the nucleus of the prairie grain business, with the Exchange itself operating an open cash market for the buying and selling of western wheat. In 1904, the Exchange inaugurated futures markets for wheat, oats and flaxseed, then in the 1910's futures markets for barley and rye.