Around 1981, this barn northwest of Dauphin in the Rural Municipality of Dauphin were featured in a Manitoba Co-operator series on rural architecture. The original caption for the photograph is given below.
The attached wooden barn silo was at one time a common sight in Manitoba barnyards, although winds and rot have reduced the numbers to a handful. This fine example of bank barn construction is located a few miles northwest of Dauphin. Built in 1915 by the brothers Oliver McQuay and Robert James McQuay, it features a 30-foot-high silo constructed of tongue-and-groove fir ordered from British Columbia. Unlike most other barns in the area which were built from lumber milled at the nearby Riding Mountains, the McQuay barn used almost all BC-imported lumber at a cost of about $15 per thousand. The 40-foot by 64-foot structure is built upon two-foot-thick stone walls, plus main timbers of 10-inch by 12-inch dimension and 3-inch by 12-inch floor joists. Coming to the Dauphin area in 1898 from Durham County in southern Ontario, Robert James McQuay and his brother designed their own barn using previous experiences in Ontario’s barn designs. They made their own lime kilns and most stones were faced with stone hammers.
In 1984, the barn was dismantled and much of its fir timber was used in construction of a modern dairy barn at the site.
McQuay Barn (circa 1981)
Source: Bob HainstockSite Coordinates (lat/long): N51.23435, W100.08507
denoted by symbol on the map above
We thank Karen McQuay Storey for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Bob Hainstock, Ed Ledohowski, and Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 25 April 2021
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