At the end of each year I like to look back and see what posts caught people's attentions. What I find most interesting is that some of the most popular posts go back many years, but still have legs !
1. The top two posts I am going to count as one. It was a series profiling the three buildings damaged or destroyed by fire in Brandon back in May 2018. They were the Hanbury Hardware Building (1907) at 705 Pacific Avenue, the Massey Harris Building (1913) at 638 Pacific Avenue and the Cockshutt Farm Supplies Building (1946) at 645 Pacific. These posts got nearly triple the number of page views that the next entry.
2. Is a post I wrote a decade ago looking back at the life of Ken Leishman, a.k.a. The Flying Bandit (2008). That was so long ago that it predates Dumplings and was written on This Was Manitoba. Why a Hollywood movie hasn't been made about this guy is beyond me.
3. Again to a This Was Manitoba post from 2008 was about Eatons' catalogue houses and other buildings. It started out as a post about a building many thought was a prefab Eaton's building, but turned out to be form one of the other companies offering kit buildings at the time.
4. This one baffles me as it has stayed in the top five each year since 2014: Lives Lived at 1021 Wellington Crescent. It was a pretty basic post I wrote after a fire destroyed a landmark home. All these years later, people still want to read about it !
5. Is a look back at things I have written about the history of public toilets in Winnipeg (2018). That, or maybe people are just looking for public toilets in Winnipeg and frustratingly get this post instead.
6. In September, a couple of cast members of Coronation Street were visiting Winnipeg. I plugged the event and thought I would look back at Coronation Street's Canadian history (2018).
7. "Put your trash into Orbit" (2011) is a familiar road trip expression to those of a certain age. This old post got new life this year in part due to the renewed interest from Gordon Goldsborough's new book which includes an interview and original drawings from its inventor.
8. Remembering car window frost shields (2013) is another bit of automotive nostalgia that was was good for the top 10.
9. Parts of my 2010 series on Safeway in Winnipeg usually makes the top ten, particularly the one related to the sweeping styles of the 1960s. This post is pretty out of date now as new archival sources have come online since I wrote that. I keep meaning to go back an clean it up and update it.
10. Did you know that the Budweiser Clydesdales originated in Winnipeg? They certainly did and that 2012 post informed a few hundred other people in 2018.
10. (tie) I love researching, and usually dispelling, urban myths. The one about the Arlington Bridge originally slated to cross the Nile (2012) is one that is actually quite plausible, though the Blue Nile in Sudan, not the Nile proper in Egypt. Here's my research into that one.
To finish off a top ten with just posts written in 2018:
- A sad day for Brandon's Strand Theatre.
- A look back at the end of prohibition in Manitoba.
- The forgotten poet of Victor Street.
- John Rudy, the last resident of Elmwood's Tin Town.
- Farewell Mac's Milk.
- West End's Oddson House to be demolished.
Thanks for reading my blogs and don't forget to read me most weeks in the Real Estate News.
There's more to come in 2019 !
Christian
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