Lyon Block/Bate Building - 217-225 McDermot Avenue
William H. Lyon, had been an Indian trader before opening a store in the Red River Settlement in 1860 to rival the Hudson Bay Company. The business eventually required more space as it grew into the large and prosperous wholesale partnership of Lyon, MacKenzie and Powis.
This brick building was erected in 1883 and was well constructed, with oversized joists and a stone foundation. A three-storey structure designed in Romanesque style similar to other buildings in the burgeoning warehouse district. The details and quality of the brickwork on the Lyon Block, however, made its design especially notable and successful.
James Aikens, lawyer and at one time Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba, bought the building in 1900, renting it to the Winnipeg Free Press until 1905. The following year two storeys were added to the building and Aikens moved his law firm there. The building has served as office building space since. From 1917 to 1923, the building was the center for the film exchange business in Winnipeg at a time when owners loaned private copies of Hollywood movies.
Built a year after the Telegram Building, the Bate Block is a simpler version of the Victoria Romanesque style. The original three-storeys have round-headed windows with raised brick labels, the window of a plainer style at the fourth and fifth storeys are from the 1906 addition. Both the exterior and most of the interior of the Block are substantially intact from 1905.
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