Our History

Concerned about the future maintenance and ownership of the museum, Watson collaborated with the Grandview Town and Rural Municipality. Together, they secured grants to build a new building in town and to secure wages for students to work during the busy summer tourist season. It was decided that the museum building would be located at the original site of the planer mill of the TA Burrows Lumber Company, which employed about 1,000 people in the Grandview area in the early 1900s when the population of the Municipality was around 5,000. Watson donated his artifacts from his farm to the new museum, named after him, to be under the oversight and control of a community board. Watson McLean Crossley remained involved with the museum until his death in 1980 at the age of 88.

The Watson Crossley building is home to Watson’s collection of Indigenous artifacts and rock collection, displays for the RCMP, Armed Forces, Ukrainian history, household artifacts, medical and dental artifacts, local sports memorabilia, local music/band history, a cougar that was caught in the area, the Exponent collection spanning from 1901 until its last published paper, as well as possibly the only Muskox skull in a Manitoba collection.

As more people worked and donated to the museum, there was a need for more storage space. The community fundraised again, and the first car shed was built to store cars and machinery.

Next was the log Pioneer House, originally the home of Robert Tate. It was built in 1896 out of Tamarac logs from the Wicklow district. It was rebuilt in 1972 and moved to town to join the museum.

The workshop was built next by the Grandview Motor Club, which was separate from the museum but was essentially joined with the museum over the years. It was and is still used for repairs and restoration. There have been over 50 tractors restored in this workshop.

When the school amalgamation happened, there were 20 country schools that were to be joined together with the Grandview School. There was not enough space for all the students to attend the Grandview school, so some of the country schoolhouses were moved into town to help accommodate all the students. The Ottawa School was one of these. Once the new Grandview School was built, the Ottawa Schoolhouse was moved to the edge of town and used as a tourist booth for several years before moving again to join the Grandview Museum.

The Pioneer Home came next. It was an Eaton house built in 1918 by William and Annie Jeffrey, then later owned by James and Ella Crowe. The Crowe family donated the house to the museum, and it was moved onto the museum site in 1992. It is filled with household items that were donated and that were part of Watson Crossley’s original collection.

The Holy Ghost Ukrainian Church was built in 1928. In the 1960s, it was moved to Shortdale to be more central for the congregation. The last service was held there in 1993. A group of church members wanted the church to be moved to be preserved, but the priest at the time objected. The group of members persisted, and in 1996, the church was moved to the museum. All the items inside the church were part of the church when it was moved.

The machine shed was another community-funded building. Most of the building was built by local volunteers. The building was constructed to house the growing collection of steel wheel tractors. The collection soon became too big for this building, so a second building was built to house more tractors as well as the vintage snowmobile collection.

In 2015, during the homecoming reunion, a local group put on a reenactment of the beginnings of Grandview. After it was over, some family members involved with the Burrows Lumber Company met with some museum members and suggested having a building dedicated to the logging done in Grandview. In 2017, the building was started, and it is a dedication to TA Burrows as well as the local logging companies in the area.