Name/Title
Brookdale Flat WarehouseDescription
In the early days of Manitoba agriculture, farmers delivered their grain to a “flat warehouse,” a one-storey rectangular building with a ramp on one side for horse-drawn wagons, and rails on the other side for loading grain into boxcars. Grain was moved in and out of the flat warehouse manually—by scoop or in cloth sacks.
The first grain elevator in Manitoba was built at Gretna, in 1881. An elevator handled grain without need of manual labour, so it quickly replaced the flat warehouse. In 1901, Manitoba had 76 licensed flat warehouses; by 1917, it had none.
The last surviving flat warehouse on the prairies is located in western Manitoba. Constructed in 1902, it was used for much of the 20th century to store farm supplies and hardware.
The Manitoba Agricultural Museum intends to move the Flat Warehouse to the museum grounds, put it on a solid foundation, and restore it inside and out to its former glory, as an exhibit of the early history of grain handling in Manitoba.