An army private from Moose Jaw, wounded slightly during the First World War, rejoined the war effort in the Canadian Engineering Corps, rising to captain by war’s end.
The construction supervision post in the Engineering Corps gave Hubert J. Bird a taste for the construction business.
In Moose Jaw during 1920, he and two partners bought Navin Construction, starting a business that has become national and celebrated 100 years of operation at the end of March.
Bird bought out his partners and went on to grow the company.
In a four-year period, the company went from $150,000 volume to $2 million. Revenue is now over $1.3 billion.
When the crash of 1929 came Bird had secured enough contracts to see the company through to 1931.
Just some of the Moose Jaw buildings Bird built include Moose Jaw General Hospital, Providence Hospital, Royal Bank on High Street, Natatorium, Timothy Eaton Centre and St Joseph’s Church.
Bird built an arts-and-crafts style bungalow at 1122 Redland Avenue in 1924. The home features a broad eave with exposed rafters, low-pitched roof overhanging the porch supported by columns.
Narrow clapboard siding was placed above a stucco foundation sprayed with small stones. Cedar shingles went to the top of the gables with oak wood floors in the living area.
The Bird family left the home in 1937, when the company moved the head office to Winnipeg. Now restored, the house is Redland Cottage Bed and Breakfast.
When the Second World War came, Bird was awarded huge contracts from building half the air training schools in the west to military bases. Miraculously, the projects were all completed in six months, allowing the British Air Commonwealth Training Plan to function and fight the war.
By the mid-1940s, Bird was the largest home builder in Canada, awarded a contract with Wartime Housing Ltd. to build 15,000 houses.
The wartime houses were in the Atlantic provinces, Calgary, Kildonan, Elmwood, Fort Rouge, Kenora, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Moose Jaw, Portage la Prairie, Redcliff, St. James, Transcona, and Winnipeg.
The compact, sturdy wartime houses are still in use today.
Bird got a federal government contract to build more than 5,000 peace-time homes in Western Canada for returning veterans, in Redcliff, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Bow Island, and Moose Jaw
Bird Construction grew further across Canada with Hubert Bird stepping down in 1953 to become board chairman.
Major projects in Saskatchewan included the CPR postal station in Regina, Casino Regina, then the CPR station, Alwinsal Potash Mine, regional Royal Bank headquarters in Regina, Weyburn Hospital addition, Outlook bridge, Saskatchewan Landing bridge, and the Royal Museum in Regina.
Bird died in 1964 and his son took over. He died in 2018. The family still holds a controlling interest in the publicly traded company.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
