Algoma Consolidated Corporation (Railroad) Limited

Product Details

Not listed

Historical Context

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This company was incorporated in 1930 as a holding company, primarily holding stock of the Algoma Central Railway.

The Algoma Central Railway - a Canadian railway entitity - was initially owned by Francis H. Clergue, who required a railway to haul resources from the interior of the Algoma District to Clergue's industries in Sault Ste. Marie; specifically, to transport logs to his pulp mill and iron ore from the Helen Mine near Wawa to a proposed steel mill (which was later named Algoma Steel). The Algoma Central Railway was chartered on August 11, 1899. The railway's Dominion and provincial charters gave it authority to build north from Sault Ste. Marie to a junction with the Canadian Pacific Railway's main line, as well as a branch line to Michipicoten Harbour, on Lake Superior near Wawa.

In 1901 Clergue acquired the charter of the Ontario, Hudson Bay and Western Railway, who were intending to build a line between the CPR main line and Hudson Bay and then changed the name of the Algoma Central Railway to the Algoma Central and Hudson Bay Railway, anticipating a connection either to Moose Factory on James Bay, or to some point on Hudson Bay.

An engine arriving at Hawk Junction.The Algoma Central fell victim to the bankruptcy of Clergue's Consolidated Lake Superior Corporation in 1903. At that time, the line reached 56 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie with a 20-mile segment running east from Michipicoten Harbour that did not yet connect with the main line. Construction was stopped, but was resumed in 1909 and the line was extended northward through to junctions with the Michipicoten Harbour branch (at Hawk Junction), the Canadian Pacific Railway (at Franz) and the Canadian Northern Railway (at Oba). In 1914 it finally reached Hearst, a town 296 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie that was a divisional point on the National Transcontinental Railway. By that point, Clergue's dream of building a railway to Hudson Bay or James Bay had long been abandoned, and the railway's northern terminus remained at Hearst, around 150 miles from James Bay. However, the phrase and Hudson Bay was not removed from the railway's name until June 30, 1965.

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