Description of Historic Place

The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Station at Schreiber is a two-storey, brick-and-stucco-clad railway station built in 1924. It is located in the town of Schreiber, along the northern shore of Lake Superior. The formal recognition is confined to the railway station building itself.

Heritage Value

The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Station at Schreiber reflects its importance as a divisional point station with an administrative centre and extensive rail yards and repair facilities. The CPR transferred its superintendant’s office here in 1931. The station reflects the key role played by the CPR in Schreiber’s ongoing development.

Unusual among the CPR inventory for its size and design, the Schreiber station resembles contemporary Canadian National Railways divisional stations built in northern Ontario. It also includes features common to early-20th-century, rural railway stations across Canada.

The station retains some elements of its relationship to its original site, including the tracks and sidings signal shack and car repair shops and nearby duplexes built as company housing. The station remains one of the most important and visually identifiable structures in Schreiber.

Sources: Heritage Character Statement, Canadian Pacific Railway Station, Schreiber, Ontario, March 1994; Murray Peterson, Railway Station Report 193, Canadian Pacific Railway Station, Schreiber, Ontario.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the Canadian Pacific Railway Station at Schreiber include:
-its elongated, rectangular plan
-its size, consisting of a two-storey structure with nine bays on each of the track (north) and town (south) elevations
-its horizontality, expressed through its elongated rectangular plan, long, hipped roof with gabled dormers at the ends of the track elevation and the continuous platform canopy along the track elevation
-features typical of early-20th-century, rural railway stations, including a hipped roof, a continuous platform canopy and eaves brackets
-the platform canopy extending the full length of the track elevation and returning around the corners, supported by paired, timber brackets resting on stone corbels
-a small canopy marking the central entrance on the town elevation
-features which create rich textural colour, including the cut-stone, bevelled course in Tyndall limestone at window sill level, the concrete foundation below, the textured and variegated face brick above, laid in Common/American bond with soldier and row-lock courses, the cut-stone lug sills at the second storey windows and the natural, pebble-dash stucco treatment of the frieze and gables
-the regular pattern of openings on the track and street elevations, consisting of nine, evenly spaced bays of paired windows or double doors on the ground floor, aligned with paired windows at the second floor
-the special treatment given to the second and eighth bays, consisting of a slight projection of the wall plane, a vertical extension into gabled dormers penetrating the eave line and cut-stone trim around the ground-floor double doors
-surviving original interior finishes and fittings, including hardwood floors, burlap dados, wood trim, plaster finishes, early hardware and cast-iron stairs
-surviving original finishes in the waiting room, including quarry-tile floor and base, brick dado, textured plaster walls and oak beam ceiling.