Vignettes
/ The Exchange
District
/ Princess
Bawlf Block (House of Comoy)
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This is the second home of the Winnipeg Grain and Produce
Exchange. The building was built by one of its founders,
Nicholas Bawlf, an Irish immigrant who settled in Ontario
before coming west in 1877. The Victorian Commercial structure
was the center of the grain industry upon its opening.
The trading room was located on the third floor of the
building. Offices were on the second floor and the main
floor contained showrooms, spanned by metal trusses, for
agricultural implements. A central well illuminated the
interior of the building. The Board of Trade, which later
became the Chamber of Commerce also occupied the building,
and the Hudson’s Bay Company fur exchange did business
here from 1930 to 1950.
The block was designed by Barber and Barber, Winnipeg’s
foremost boom-time architects who also built the old City
Hall, the Leland Hotel, the McIntyre Block and Manitoba College.
