Sir William Mackenzie (October 17, 1849 – December 5, 1923) was a Canadian railway contractor and entrepreneur.
Born near Peterborough, Canada West (now Ontario), Mackenzie became a teacher and politician before entering business as the owner of a sawmill and gristmill in Kirkfield, Ontario. He entered the railway business as a contractor under civil engineer James Ross, working on projects in Ontario, British Columbia, Maine, and the North-West Territories (present-day Saskatchewan and Alberta) between 1874 and 1891.
In partnership with his mentor James Ross, Mackenzie became owner of the Toronto Street Railway (precursor to the Toronto Transit Commission) in 1891 and in 1899, helped found the precursor to Brazilian Traction, for which he was the first chairman. In 1895, together with Donald Mann, Mackenzie began to purchase or build rail lines in the Canadian prairies, which would form the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR), a company that would stretch from Vancouver Island to Cape Breton Island and form Canada's second transcontinental railway system. He started Pat Burns' career by giving him a series of contracts for provisioning food for the railway contract. Burns would go on to build one of the World's largest meat empires.
Mackenzie and Mann were knighted in 1911 for their efforts in the railway industry, but personal and company financial difficulties led to the bankruptcy of the CNoR. The system was nationalized by the federal government on September 6, 1918, and subsequently became part of the Canadian National Railway.
Mackenzie died in Toronto, Ontario. He was inducted into Ottawa's Canadian Railway Hall of Fame in 2002 along with partner Mann.
Alexander Mackenzie was a Canadian politician who served as the second prime minister of Canada, in office from 1873 to 1878.
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, with corporate headquarters in London, United Kingdom. It cost an estimated $160 million to build. The Grand Trunk, its subsidiaries, and the Canadian Government Railways were precursors of today's Canadian National Railway.
The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway, the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.
John Rudolphus Booth was a Canadian lumber tycoon and railroad baron. He controlled logging rights for large tracts of forest land in central Ontario, and built the Canada Atlantic Railway to extract his logs and to export lumber and grain to the United States and Europe. In 1892, his lumber complex was the largest operation of its kind in the world.
The National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) was a historic railway between Winnipeg and Moncton in Canada. Much of the line is now operated by the Canadian National Railway.
William Kingsford was an English-born Canadian historian. Born in London, England, served in the army, and went to Canada, where he was engaged in surveying work. He was a self-taught historian, and one of the first to use the archives being gathered in Ottawa. He is best known for his History of Canada in 10 volumes (1887–1898), which was widely read by the upper middle class, as well as Anglophone teachers, despite its poor organisation and pedestrian writing style. Kingsford believed that the Conquest of New France guaranteed victory for British constitutional liberty and that it ensured material progress. He assumed the assimilation of French Canadians into a superior British culture was inevitable and desirable, for he envisioned Canada as one nation with one anglophone population.
Sir Donald Daniel Mann, who was also referred to as "Dan" or "D.D." before his knighthood, was a Canadian railway contractor and entrepreneur.
David Blyth Hanna was a railway executive with the Canadian Northern Railway and the Canadian National Railways. Born in Thornliebank, Scotland, he emigrated to Canada in 1882 where he was employed by the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1896 he joined William Mackenzie and Donald Mann who organized the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) in Western Canada.
The Mount Royal Tunnel is a railway tunnel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The tunnel is the third longest in Canada, after the Mount Macdonald Tunnel and the Connaught Tunnel, and connects the city's Central Station, in Downtown Montreal, with the north side of Montreal Island and Laval and passes through Mount Royal.
James Conmee was an Ontario businessman and political figure. He represented Algoma West from 1885 to 1902 and Port Arthur and Rainy River from 1902 to 1904 in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and Thunder Bay and Rainy River in the House of Commons of Canada from 1904 to 1911 as a Liberal member.
The Toronto and Nipissing Railway (T&N) was the first public narrow-gauge railway in North America. It chartered in 1868 to build from Toronto to Lake Nipissing in Ontario, Canada, via York, Ontario, and Victoria counties. At Nipissing it would meet the transcontinental lines of the Canadian Pacific, providing a valuable link to Toronto. It opened in 1871, with service between Scarborough and Uxbridge. By December 1872 it was extended to Coboconk, but financial difficulties led to plans of the line being built further abandoned at this point. The railway merged with the Midland Railway of Canada in 1882.
Kirkfield is a village located in the city of Kawartha Lakes, in the Canadian province of Ontario. The unincorporated village was named in 1864 after the initial name, Novar, was rejected by the government. A list of 8 possible choices was then offered. The village, being predominantly Scottish at the time, chose Kirkfield, after Kirk' o' Field in Edinburgh. It is home to Lock 36 of the Trent-Severn Waterway, a hydraulic lift lock which connects Canal Lake and the artificially flooded Mitchell Lake. Travellers and commuters pass through Kirkfield regularly while travelling on Highway 48 west towards Highway 12 and east towards Highway 35.
James Leveson Ross, of Montreal, was a Scottish-born Canadian civil engineer, businessman and philanthropist. He established his fortune predominantly through railway construction, notably for the Canadian Pacific Railway, of which he was the major shareholder, and advising Lord Strathcona on railway projects in Argentina and Chile. He oversaw the electrification of street railways in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saint John, Birmingham (England), Mexico City and São Paulo. He was president of the Dominion Bridge Company, the Mexican Power Company etc. He was Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of the 17th Duke of York's Royal Canadian Hussars and Governor of McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital. He was an avid collector of the Old Masters and president of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. He owned several yachts including two named Glencairn and became the first Canadian to be made a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron. He funded the construction of the Ross Memorial Wing at the Royal Vic; the Ross Memorial Hospital and Nurse's Home at Lindsay, Ontario; and the Protestant Hospital for the Insane at Verdun, Quebec. He lived in the Golden Square Mile.
The Silver Mountain Station is a historic railway station located in the Thunder Bay District, Ontario. It sits at the intersection of Highway 588 and Highway 593. Now operated as a restaurant, it was constructed in 1907 as a major station along the Port Arthur, Duluth and Western Railway. It is also currently home to the Silver Mountain and Area Historical Society.
Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company (LMR) was a historic rail line in Manitoba, Canada, between Gladstone in the south and Winnipegosis to its north.
The North Lake is a former railway station located near North Lake, Thunder Bay District, Ontario. It lies close to La Verendrye Provincial Park and to the well known Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in the Boundary Waters between Canada and the United States. It was constructed in 1907 as a major station along the Port Arthur, Duluth and Western Railway.
The Central Ontario Railway (COR) was a former railway that ran north from Trenton, Ontario to service a number of towns, mines, and sawmills. Originally formed as the Prince Edward County Railway in 1879, it ran between Picton and Trenton, where it connected with the Grand Trunk Railway that ran between Montreal and Toronto. After being purchased by a group of investors and receiving a new charter to build northward, the company was renamed the Central Ontario Railway in 1882, and it started building towards the gold fields at Eldorado and newly discovered iron fields in Coe Hill.
The Hudson Bay Railway (HBR) is a historic rail line in Manitoba, Canada to the shore of Hudson Bay. The venture began as a line between Winnipeg in the south and Churchill, and/or Port Nelson, in the north. However, HBR came to describe the final section between The Pas and Churchill.
The Bay of Quinte Railway was a short-line railway in eastern Ontario, Canada. It was formed as the Napanee, Tamworth and Quebec Railway (NT&QR), chartered in 1878 by Edward Rathbun and Alexander Campbell, with plans to run from Napanee through Renfrew County and on to the Ottawa Valley. Lacking funding from the governments, development never began.
The Irondale, Bancroft and Ottawa Railway (IB&O) was a short line railway in Central Ontario, Canada. The line was originally opened in 1878 as the Myles Branch Tramway, a horse-drawn wagonway connecting the Snowdon Iron Mine to the Victoria Railway a few miles away. The line was taken over by a group looking to build a northern extension of the Toronto and Nipissing Railway (T&N) as the Toronto and Nipissing Eastern Extension Railway. This extension was never built; instead, the company rechartered as the IB&O and used the Tramway as the basis for a new line with the ultimate aim to connect Orillia to the Ottawa area.