Starbuck, Manitoba

Starbuck is a small town of about 350 people in Manitoba near the La Salle River, and is located within the Rural Municipality of Macdonald, Manitoba.

First Nations and Metis people had lived in the area well before the arrival of European families who began settling around Starbuck by 1870. In 1881 the railway came through and in 1885 the community was named Starbuck by the contractor who graded the railway roadbed. According to Geographical Names of Manitoba the contractor's name was either Vanderstice, Vanderslie, or Vanzile. Also it may be that Starbuck was named after Starbuck, Minnesota or a similar named town in Germany. The Post Office was opened in 1887.

There is a long held fable of Starbuck being named after two oxen, Star and Buck, who drowned in the La Salle River (formerly the Stinking River) where the community is now. However this story is very similar to how Starbuck, Minnesota got its name. In the end, it might have been the the Minnesota community was named after William H. Starbuck, a railroad financier from New York.

By the early 1900's Starbuck was booming. Families compromising an eclectic mix of European heritages began settling in the area. The Metis reserve that was located west of town gave way to a number of these families. A large drainage project resulted in the Codner Drain which empties into the La Salle River. A passenger train came through twice a week. There were two general stores, a blacksmith, butcher, bank and hotel.

Starbuck is about a 25 minute drive from Winnipeg along Provincial Trunk Highway (PTH) 2. Also Provincial Road 332 runs north and south of town. The Canadian Pacific Railway's Souris line still runs through Starbuck providing the primary means of shipping grain out of the terminal. Passenger train service was halted a number of decades ago. Bus service to and from Winnipeg is provided 3 times per week.

Starbuck has three churches (Catholic, Lutheran, and United), a community hall, skating and curling rinks, and an early/middle years school. Also there is a butcher shop, a general store, a convenience store, a hardware store, a hotel, an insurance office, a credit union, a trucking company, a landscaper, a large grain terminal and a 18 hole golf course. As well there are several other businesses in and around Starbuck.

The "Starbuck Communications Tower" (although it is much closer to Springstein than Starbuck) transmits the signals of CBWT, CBWFT, CBW-FM, and CKSB-FM to places within 100 kilometres of its location. It is the tallest free-standing structure in the province at 1,064 feet (324.31 m). [cite news | title = CBWT Will Switch to Channel 6 | publisher = Winnipeg Free Press | page = 3 | date = November 5, 1964]

Around 2002, ROGERS set up the "ROGERS Communications Tower", as a transmitter for its 92 CITI-FM and 102 Clear FM because ROGERS felt that the CBC-owned tower caused multipath distortion. Canwest Global's COOL FM had originally wanted to install its transmitter on the CBC tower, but they also moved it to the ROGERS tower. [cite web
title = Broadcasting Application CRTC 2003-39
publisher = Government of Canada - CRTC
date = July 23, 2003
url = http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2003/db2003-470.htm
format = ] , and to decrease the EIRP from 100,000 to 63,700 watts. [cite web
title = Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2003-470
publisher = Government of Canada - CRTC
date = September 19, 2003
url = http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2003/db2003-470.htm]

References

External links

See http://www.starbuckmanitoba.com/ or http://www.rmofmacdonald.com/index.asp?ID=20&Sub_ID=163&Sub2_ID=0 for more information.