Template:Short description Template:For Template:Infobox person Sir Donald Daniel Mann (March 23, 1853 – November 10, 1934), who was also referred to as "Dan" or "D.D." before his knighthood,<ref name="Elstone1980"/> was a Canadian railway contractor and entrepreneur.
BiographyEdit
Born at Acton, Canada West, Mann studied as a Methodist minister but worked in lumber camps in Parry Sound District and Michigan for eight yearsTemplate:Sfn before moving to Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1879.<ref name="FPobit"/> During the 1880s he worked as a contractor for the Canadian Pacific Railway under James Ross and Herbert Samuel Holt, building sections of rail across the prairies and through the Rocky Mountains.<ref name="FPobit"/>
Partnering with William Mackenzie in 1886,<ref name="FPobit"/> Mann built railway lines in Western Canada, Maine, and Chile. They also went to China to pursue opportunities, but found the red tape there too great an obstacle to overcome.<ref name="FPobit"/> While there, he was challenged to a duel by a Russian count, who later withdrew when Mann advised him that he would choose to use the broadaxe, claiming it to be Canada's national weapon.<ref name="FPobit"/>
By 1895, the effects of the CPR monopoly on freight rates in Western Canada, together with its refusal to build branch lines into the northern prairie, prompted Clifford Sifton to offer federal bond guarantees to any other enterprise that wished to construct railways there.<ref name="ECcnor">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Mackenzie and Mann took up the offer, and began the process of purchasing and building such lines.<ref name="ECcnor"/> They would later be consolidated in 1898 to become the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR), a line which would stretch from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, to Montreal,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> with other unconnected lines as far east as Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, which would form Canada's second transcontinental railway system.<ref name="ECcnor"/> The CNoR would be the first railway to reach Edmonton, Alberta, and the full line was completed in 1915, upon the driving of the last spike in Basque, British Columbia.<ref name="ECcnor"/> In recognition of their contributions to the development of Canada's railways, both Mann and Mackenzie were knighted in 1911.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>
Financial difficulties eventually resulted in the insolvency of the CNoR. It was nationalized by the federal government on September 6, 1918,<ref>as a consequence of arbitration under Template:Cite canlaw</ref> and became the Canadian National Railway.<ref>Template:Cite canlaw</ref>
Mann developed other business opportunities on his own, which included coal mines and a related railway in Inverness County, Nova Scotia, the Winnipeg Street Railway, and multiple public utilities in Monterrey, Mexico.Template:Sfn
Mann turned to oil drilling. He leased land in the Township of Vaughan, near the village of Concord, and sank a well in November 1922. In the spring of 1928, instead of oil, he found mineral water. Under the name Ontario Mineral Waters Ltd. he bottled and sold it as a health tonic named "Raysol Radium Water" effective against a variety of ailments including diabetes, angina, tuberculosis and rheumatism. $1 a bottle or $3 a gallon. The venture failed ostensibly because the water was very salty.<ref>Raysol: radium in solution, Ontario Mineral Waters, Ltd., Northern Ontario Building, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. [Oct. 24, 1929]Template:Nonspecific</ref>
Mann died in 1934 at the age of 81, and was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Acton.<ref name="FPobit">Template:Cite news</ref>
LegacyEdit
In 1969, a park was named for Sir Donald Mann in Acton, Ontario, the land of which once formed part of the farm on which he grew up.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It is adjacent to the CNR track, and not far away from the former right of way once occupied by the Toronto Suburban Railway controlled by Mackenzie and Mann.
He, along with Mackenzie, was inducted into the Canadian Railway Hall of Fame in 2002.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
He is also known for the Mann Cup, the trophy awarded to the senior men's lacrosse champions of Canada.<ref name="Elstone1980">Template:Cite news</ref> The cup is made of solid gold, and it was donated in 1910.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
External linksEdit
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