Manitoba Municipal Heritage Site No. 50

Law Office Building
510 Main Street
Swan River

Law Office Building
Designation Date: September 18, 1990
Designation Authority: The Town of Swan River
Present Owner: Swan Valley Credit Union Ltd.

The Law Office Building, erected as a single-storey business block during Swan River’s early burst of growth, and later enhanced by the addition of residential space, recalls the evolution of prairie main streets. The serviceable structure, first occupied by pioneer lawyer and mayor S.E. Wright, and later by a succession of lawyers, is typically modest in its aesthetics and construction and also typically has been modified over time to remain a vital part of a commercial thoroughfare that itself has had to adapt and endure. This kind of local determination is also expressed in the large mural on one of the building’s blank walls, created in 1998. Now a familiar sight in many small Manitoba communities, such murals, which typically celebrate local heritage of the late-nineteenth-century settlement era, provide a new and inventive way to attract visitors to downtown.