Noah Anthony Timmins

Class of 1985

Noah Anthony Timmins became one of Canada’s most celebrated mining entrepreneurs. Following his father’s death, Noah and his younger brother Henry tended the family’s general store in Mattawa. But each summer they left the relative comfort of being main street merchants to go prospecting. In 1903 they met Fred LaRose who discovered what appeared to be a promising silver strike. Henry Timmins bought LaRose’s share of the claim. The foundations of a mining empire had been laid. The LaRose silver mine was later sold for one million dollars. 

In 1909 Noah bought the rights to the claim that was one of the richest gold finds in North America. The Hollinger mine was ready to begin operations in 1911. The next year, the small town that sprung up around the mine site was incorporated as Timmins, Ontario. Over the next twenty years, the mine paid out more than seventy five million dollars in dividends.

Noah Timmins played the role of financier with the same boundless enthusiasm as he had the role of prospector and grubstaker. The Timmins brothers and their partners formed the Canadian Mining and Finance Company. This in turn became Hollinger Consolidated Mines Limited with Noah as president.