Description of Historic Place

The Winnipeg Beach Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Water Tower is an elevated steel storage tank erected in 1928 on the sandy southwest shore of Lake Winnipeg near a rail line into the resort town of Winnipeg Beach. The provincial designation applies to the tall structure and its large site.

Heritage Value

The Winnipeg Beach CPR Water Tower, a riveted steel storage tank on a braced skeletal steel frame, is the best example of its type in Manitoba and the only structure that remains from the various facilities built by the CPR to develop Winnipeg Beach into a premier lakeside resort. The site's vast sandy shoreline, supplemented in the early 1900s by the CPR's amusement, recreation and other amenities, made it a perennially popular destination for summer excursions and vacations. The water tower, designed and built by Vulcan Iron Works Ltd. of Winnipeg, added a highly visible feature to the shoreline, as well as a source of pressurized lake water for railway use and local firefighting. The utilitarian structure, once common on the Manitoba landscape, is now among only five riveted steel water towers from the 1890s to 1940s known to survive in the province. It also continues to be a visually symbolic and historically significant feature in its beach community.

Source: Manitoba Heritage Council Minutes, April 20, 1996

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the resort character of the Winnipeg Beach CPR Water Tower site include:
- the tower's exposed situation on Stephenson's Point on the southwestern shore of Lake Winnipeg, visible for considerable distances in all directions, including from the Winnipeg Beach business district to the north and CPR railway tracks to the west

Key elements that define the structure's utilitarian design and appearance include:
- the functional configuration of a 90,000-litre-plus water storage tank elevated on a tower of sufficient height (40 metres) to pressurize a water distribution system
- the use of riveted steel as the main construction material and method
- the cylindrical black storage tank with its hemispherical base, shallow conical roof and 'WINNIPEG BEACH' painted in large white letters on the north side
- the skeletal steel tower with four legs anchored to concrete pads, angled on an upward incline and reinforced by lateral and diagonal braces
- details such as the standpipe that provided and sustained the flow rate, the tower's attached steel ladder, the tank's catwalk or service platform with a guardrail, etc.