In 1882, McDonald and Cuddy formed the Minnedosa Brick Company with a plant near Minnedosa. However, between December 1882 and January 1883, they ended up in court because they did not take out the necessary timber permits to cut the wood supply for the facility. Due to the legal expense, the proprietors disposed of their shares to John Crerar and Dr. J. B. Hunter of Minnedosa. They hired Mr. Bull from the Salt Lake area as their yard manager, who had several years of experience manufacturing brick from his time in various Winnipeg brick yards. Brick manufacturing started by the end of May 1883 and soon the plant was turning out 12,000 bricks per day. Minnedosa buildings constructed using brick from the plant included G. W. Beynon’s business block on Minnedosa Street, Minnedosa South School No. 232 (designed by William T. Dalton of Winnipeg), and the Minnedosa Town Hall (designed by architects Head and Demar). Operations were shut down by 1884 and, in 1888, A. S. Walker purchased the equipment and moved it to Neepawa.
Manitoba Brick Yards by Randy Rostecki, Manitoba Historic Resources Branch Report, May 2010.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 10 May 2020
Manitoba Bricks and Blocks
A history of the manufacture of bricks and concrete blocks in Manitoba, based on research by Randy Rostecki for the Manitoba Historic Resources Branch and supplemented by information compiled by Gordon Goldsborough of the Manitoba Historical Society. .
Bricks | Blocks | People | Glossary
We thank Hugh Arklie, Gordon McDiarmid, and Heather Bertnick for their help in the development of this online guide. Financial support of the Thomas Sill Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. Additional information was provided by Ina Bramadat, David Butterfield, Neil Christoffersen, Frank Korvemaker, Ed Ledohowski, Ken Storie, Lynette Stow, and Tracey Winthrop-Meyers.
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Randy Rostecki, Manitoba Historic Resources Branch, Gordon Goldsborough, and Manitoba Historical Society.
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