Business Ventures
Sir Alexander Galt and his son Elliott Torrance Galt co-founded the city of Lethbridge, Alberta in 1883, when he established a coal mine on the banks of the Oldman River in the southwest portion of the District of Alberta, Northwest Territories. The Canadian Post Office refused to accept the name Lethbridge for the community until 1885 because there was another town with the same name in the Dominion of Canada. Sir Alexander Galt laid out the street plan of Lethbridge's present location in 1885 after his settlement was moved to the prairie level from the river valley. Canada's Governor General, the Marquess of Landsdowne, demonstrated the Dominion government's support of the Galt enterprises, by opening the Galts' railway in September 1885 in Lethbridge.
Galt's company, the North Western Coal and Navigation Company went through a variety of name changes as it moved into railways, and irrigation enterprises. A public park and a museum (formerly a hospital) in Lethbridge are named after him. Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier dedicated the Galt Hospital addition, which houses the Galt Museum, in 1910.
Sir Alexander was the founding President of The Guarantee Company of North America in 1872, providing fidelity bonds to guarantee the sty of employees of railroads and government, which still exists today as the largest provider of surety bonds in all of Canada in public works and government services.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Tilloch Galt
Famous quotes containing the words business and/or ventures:
“A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures ...”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)