Originally named Armetta Avenue, Matheson Avenue was renamed after the teacher and cleric Alexander Matheson who was born in Kildonan in 1827. He was educated at St. John's School and then taught at the first schoolhouse in Kildonan. He died in 1911 and is buried in the Kildonan Presbyterian cemetery.
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Kildonan was one of the historical districts of the Red River Settlement and founded by Thomas Douglas, 5th earl of Selkirk, in 1817. Several villages in Scotland are named Kildonan, and ours was probably named after the village in Sutherlandshire in the far north of Scotland, an area severely affected by the Highland Clearances. Originally established in the 1870s, the Municipality of Kildonan, which spanned both sides of the Red River, was split into the RMs of West Kildonan and East Kildonan in 1914. Seven years later the municipality was further split into Old Kildonan to the south and West Kildonan to the north, where the WK residents voted in favour of town status. In 1961 council requested city status from the province.
A characteristic of WK was its residential nature. Council actively promoted development of new residential and retail areas and the population rose from 6,500 at the end of World War II to 19,000 by 1960, giving it one of the highest populations per square mile ratio of the suburban municipalities. It took a strong stand against any industrial development and by 1961 just five percent of its three square mile footprint was industrial use. Like many of the surrounding municipalities, West Kildonan was wary of closer ties with Winnipeg, partially due to the probable "substantial increase in taxes". However, in 1972 it merged into the City of Winnipeg.
(Manitoba Historical Society, Brittanica.com, rampantScotland.com)