Historical symbol or community blight? Winnipeg building lost to fire had complex past, experts say

At one time, it was bustling with hundreds of workers who would help spark the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.

But as the storied Vulcan Iron Works building burned on Tuesday — sending plumes of dark smoke up over Winnipeg's Point Douglas neighbourhood in a blaze that covered an area as long as a football field — historians said the story of the industrial complex is more complicated than that.

On one hand, it was part of a "flashpoint" moment leading up to the strike — which played a key role in Canada's labour history — and a symbol of Western Canada's industrial development, said Roland Sawatzky, curator of history at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg.

"There are pieces made at the Vulcan Iron Works that are still all around us in the older buildings in this city. They sort of form the skeleton that the city is based on," he said.

But in the decades since the company vacated the Point Douglas building for another location, it has sat largely unused and "left to decay," said Cindy Tugwell, executive director of Heritage Winnipeg.

WATCH | Fire burns at historic Point Douglas building:

It was also part of the industrial activity thought to have contributed to soil in the area being contaminated with lead in amounts that exceed national safety guidelines, she said.

"The Vulcan Iron Works company was very important to Winnipeg for employment, for the railway, for everything that [it] produced — but unfortunately it led to a lot of other problems in the area that still exist today," Tugwell said.

"I think the story here is arguably that it has led to the detriment of Point Douglas ever since."

Longtime Point Douglas resident Jordan Van Sewell said he was saddened to see a building so important to Winnipeg's history go up in flames after being neglected for years. These kinds of incidents in his neighbourhood aren't the problem, he said — but a symptom of a larger issue.

"People have suffered to the point where the hopelessness is evident around here," said Van Sewell, who has lived in Point Douglas for 35 years.

"Every day there's an incident, whether it's a fire on the riverbank here or it's a response to, you know, [the] homeless crisis."

In its heyday, the more than three-block complex of Vulcan Iron Works foundries and workshops built in the late 1800s was "a hive of activity," with workers manufacturing metal products ranging from construction materials to grain elevator equipment, Sawatzky said.

Its placement near the CP Rail shipping yard was also a crucial part of its success during "Winnipeg's first big industrial boom," and it played a large role in the area's transformation as people moved there for jobs on the railroads and in the metal factories.