The oldest building in downtown Winnipeg could get a new lease on life, provided its bones are still strong.

Work has begun on a structural inspection of the Winnipeg Hotel, with heritage lovers tightly crossing their fingers it can be restored to a former glory and reopened as a boutique hotel.

“Absolutely elated,” said Cindy Tugwell, executive director of Heritage Winnipeg. “The transformation, if that takes place, from what it is now to what it could be, I think it would be forever changing of Main Street.”

Built in 1873, the two-storey structure at 214 Main St. was first called the Garry Saloon, likely named after the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Garry, from which the land had been purchased.

It has been there to witness the arrival of the railroads and electricity, the evolution of roads from dirt to asphalt and the population and economic booms — and busts — that marked the city’s growth. In fact, it even witnessed the 1873 incorporation of the city, predating that by a few months.

“It was really the hotels on Main Street that had this city come alive and the history that can be told from that building,” Tugwell said.

In September 1892 it was the site of the reorganization meeting of the 90th Battalion rugby football club into the Osborne Football Club, which became the founding member of the Manitoba Rugby Football Union, a forerunner to the CFL, according to local history blogger Christian Cassidy.

Its history is embedded in Winnipeg’s DNA but a few years ago, the hotel was itself nearly history.

It saw numerous renovations and owners through the years and a change in its fortunes. Features like the wrought iron balcony above the main entrance were removed, the street-level picture windows replaced with glass blocks and the brick frontage covered in plywood and tiles.

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