Before the railway settled the matter as to where lasting towns would be created, there were a few other ideas about where the commercial centre of the region should be. That was especially true in the case of Melita, where there were several enterprises competing for the prize so to speak.

Not one, but two speculative cities, Dobbyn City and Manchester, were promoted near the location that eventually became Melita. Both were advertised in the Winnipeg papers with extravagant ( fraudulent?) claims to be the next big city of the west.

Through all of this there was a community, modest though it was, that actually did exist before Melita took its current form.

Menota

The excellent museum at Waskada is home to Menota School, a restored building moved to the site from several kilometres north of town.  The name has quite a bit of history attached.

The name first appears in a February 5th edition of the Brandon Sun where a contribution entitled “Menota, Man – Grand Rally of Farmers” opens with this bit of information:

Notices were posted beginning of this week, calling a meeting of farmers at Dobbyn City, on Thursday, January 25th, for the purpose of discussing the farmers’ grievances and forming a branch union. The settlers heartily responded and about fifty farmers went at the time appointed: but as Dobbyn City does not contain a building that has a roof, it was found necessary to hold the meeting here.”

Along with the wry dig at speculative cities like Dobbyn City, that never did become towns, there is quite a bit of information in those two sentences. First the farmers in all parts of southern Manitoba met often in the early 1880’s to discuss grievances, bitch about the CPR, and demand a bit of respect. Farmers’ unions were widely discussed, proposed, and even created. And the fact that such a meeting was held in Menota tells you that in a time when very few villages (with buildings featuring a roof) existed, it had such a building.


Mr. Livingston is widely known in the region as a Melita pioneer, but as of 1884 Melita wasn’t appearing in the news.

As of 1883, E.P. Snider had a post office and he and F.B. Warren operated a store on a location a few kilometres east of where Melita was later created. That about ended it’s growth spurt, but as a stop on the southwestern postal route it served its purpose for a short while until towns Like Melita and Waskada appeared.

As was the pattern across rural Manitoba, no notice was taken when the store closed and Menota ceased to be. Menota School was opened in 1887 a bit to the east in the RM of Brenda.

Dobbyn City

John Dobbyn, a homesteader near where Melita would later be located, had selected land near the Souris River where there was the general belief that a railway line would soon pass. In the spirit of the times, Mr. Dobbyn had  “Dobbyn City” surveyed and marketed. 

It was the region’s most representative example of the paper city. It was just plausible enough to be sold with conviction, but the claims wouldn’t pass today’s truth-in-advertising laws. Look through the ad and see if you can separate the blatant lies from the mere wishful thinking.


Apparently the ads worked… for a while.  In March of 1882, The Winnipeg Daily Sun reported the sale of 80 lots at an average of $30 each. How much, if any, of that money made its way into Mr. Dobbyn’s hands, no on knows.
The railway did eventually come in 1890, but Dobbyn City was long forgotten and the river was crossed about a mile further downstream.  Mr. Dobbyn had long since focused on his farm, and became a leading citizen of the new town of Melita.  

 

 
Manchester to Melita

Today, of course, Melita is the largest town in the region.  However, this was not always the case and in the early days of settlement it was not clear which service centres would thrive and flourish into important centers and which ones would not.

In 1881, homesteader Dr. Sinclair had a quarter section of his land on the west side of the Souris River surveyed as a townsite. The plan of subdivision was registered with the Souris River Registry office in March of 1882 and lots were sold to buyers as far away as Winnipeg. In 1883 R. M. Graham started a store, which was quickly followed by another one, a blacksmith shop, an implement agency and a public school.

The problem was the name they had chosen, “Manchester”. It was already taken, so when, in 1884 when the townsfolk put together a petition to open a post office, they were informed that Manchester had already been adopted by a settlement in Ontario. They sent out a list of names for the townsfolk to choose from, none of which were to their liking.

Local citizens decided to meet after church the next Sunday to settle on a name. It just so happened that the Sunday School reading that day had been chapters 26 to 28 of Acts which describes the account of the apostle Paul's shipwreck on the island of Melita (now called Malta). Everyone agreed that the post office (and consequently the town itself) should be called Melita after this Bible story. The postal department agreed and the name was made official.

And so the town was born, and as usual the business owners and residents were content to move a kilometere or so east to be alongside the new rail line when it arrived.

Before the first train whistle sounded, Mr. G.L. Dodds had moved his Hardware & General Store to the site of the new town and virtually everyone followed.


Buildings were moved from the previous location just across the tracks or built quickly from readily materials readily available via the new rail line. Many of these building were substantial, but few survive today. Within a few years they were supplanted and replaced by more ambitious structures such as the Northern Bank, the I.O.O.F Hall and the Crerar Law Office; all of which continue to grace the Main Street. It was in that period that many fine homes were erected, of both frame and brick construction, some near the core area, but others on the perimeter. Owned by community leaders with names like Dobbyn, Duncan and Holden, several of these buildings have been well cared for and survive intact.

By 1892 numerous business blocks lined Main and Front Streets.  An interesting item from an 1891 edition of the Melita Enterprise states that: “Most of the houses brought into Melita this year have found ready sale.” 


Blacksmith James Duncan was one of many who had started a business in the Manchester location, then moved it when the CPR placed their station about two kilometres east of the well-established village. (Photo - Archives of Manitoba)

Sources

Bridging Brenda (Vol 1&2), Brenda History Committee, 1990
Melita: Our First Century (Town of Melita and Municipality of Arthur),  Melita - Arthur History Committee

Sourisford: Sourisford and Area from 1879, The Sourisford History Committee