Manitoba Municipal Heritage Site No. 62

Crystal City Courier Building
218 Broadway Street
Crystal City

Crystal City Courier Building
Designation Date: February 19, 1991
Designation Authority: Village of Crystal City
Present Owner: Crystal City Community Printing Museum Incorporated

The Crystal City Courier Building is Manitoba’s oldest remaining representative of the small print shops and community newspapers that were quick to spring up as new towns were established in the settlement era. The simple wood-frame building, with its boomtown front and incremental additions, was home to the 'Crystal City Courier and Rock Lake Herald' from 1898 until 1952 and carries a strong association with T.G. McKitrick, long-time editor and publisher. It is the last remaining commercial structure of the many buildings moved from the original site of Crystal City to be on a rail line built some two kilometres to the north. At its first location, the building housed the 'Rock Lake Herald' established in 1881 by Thomas Greenway (1838-1908), Manitoba’s seventh premier (1888-1900), to enhance and promote the site he owned over other fledgling villages competing for settlers across southern Manitoba.