Early Winnipeg bars

May 15, 1893, Winnipeg Tribune

Temperance leaders often turned out to speak against liquor license renewals. This 1893 list shows about forty hotels in Winnipeg seeking one. The city’s population at the time was around 28,000.

A description of what most of these bars would have been like comes from J. A. Gray's 1972 book, Booze: "Prairie saloons were designed for stand-up drinking, with only a footrail around the serving bar and spittoons placed strategically along the floor. While not entirely without cheer and camaraderie, the bars were designed solely for the function of drinking to get drunk."