Fred La Rose

Alfred "Fred" La Rose, also known as "Fred Rose" and "Frederick LaRose" (c. 1870 - September 1940), was a blacksmith from Quebec who discovered silver on September 15, 1903 at the future site of Cobalt, Ontario. He is often referred to as the "Father of Cobalt," an unofficial title shared by the province of Ontario's first geologist, Dr. W. G. Miller (1866 - 1925).

Silver had first been discovered near Long Lake (later Cobalt Lake, Ontario), during the construction of the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) from North Bay, by J. H. McKinley and Ernest Darragh, which then became the McKinley-Darragh Mine.

Darragh and McKinley had made their find on August 7, 1903, while supplying railway ties, and kept it secret at the onset, while quickly filing their new claim on August 14. A month later, La Rose, a blacksmith, unaware of the recent silver find, made his discovery while working for brothers Duncan and John McMartin, also in the construction of the T&NO, at Mile 103 from North Bay, where he'd built a small cabin. La Rose had an arrangement with the McMartins to share in any mineral claims that he found in the course of his work, and chanced upon Erythrite, often an indication of associated cobalt and native silver. (A fanciful story later developed that La Rose discovered the vein when he threw a hammer at a pesky fox.)

Mattawa, Ontario shopkeeper Noah Timmins was informed of the claim by La Rose who, at the end of his contract, had stopped at the Timmins brothers' general store while returning home to Hull, Quebec. Noah cabled his brother, Henry Timmins, who was in Montréal at the time and immediately set out for Hull, where he met with La Rose and offered him $3,500 for a quarter share of the claim, effectively partnering with the McMartin brothers.

La Rose was subsequently fully bought-out by the Timmins and McMartin brothers, who, following a protracted legal battle over the land with M.J. O'Brien, added a third partner, lawyer R. A. Dunlop, who then organized the La Rose Mines, Limited, incorporating February 21, 1907. The company remained a closed corporation until 1908, when the La Rose Consolidated Mines Company was organized.

A third discovery, made October 21, 1903, by Thomas "Tom" Hébert– a Hull, Quebec lumberjack who was then working for the J. R. Booth Lumber Company, and had set out to seek employment with the T&NO Railway –became the successful Big Nip mine, and was "the first vein on the property now owned by the Nipissing Mining Company".

Metals discovered by La Rose and, previously, by the team of McKinley and Darragh, and then by Hébert, would spark international interest, culminating in the Cobalt silver rush. The LaRose Mine was closed in 1930, and the location became the main office of Agnico Eagle Mines Limited in Cobalt.

Fred La Rose interview extracts

"Extracts from newspaper interviews with La Rose", compiled by H.P. Davis:

Legacy

Fred La Rose was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in 2003.''Canadian Mining Hall of Fame'': "Alfred “Fred” LaRose: Cobalt Discoverers". Accessed November 29, 2017.
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Sources

''The Real Cobalt: The Story of Canada's Marvelous Silver Mining Camp'', by Anson Albert Gard, Emerson Press, Cobalt, Ontario, Canada, 1908, page 83.

"Top 10 Mining Events in Northern Ontario", by Stan Sudol, ''Republic of Mining'', March 2, 2014. Retrieved October 30, 2017.

''Canada 400'': "400th Anniversary French Presence project in Ontario: Fred La Rose". Retrieved December 7, 2017.

{{DEFAULTSORT:La Rose, Fred
Canadian miners
History of Timmins
Canadian prospectors
Franco-Ontarian people
Defunct mining companies of Canada
History of Cobalt, Ontario
Silver mining
1903 in Ontario
History of mining in Canada
Mining in Ontario
Commodity booms