Listen Live
HomeNewsHow Connaught and Cochrane got their names

How Connaught and Cochrane got their names

We continue today with our look back at how communities in and around Timmins got their names.

CONNAUGHT

Timmins Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann goes to the eastern edge of today’s city limits.

“Connaught was named for Prince Arthur, who was the Duke of Connaught, seventh child of Queen Victoria,” says Bachmann, “and he was the Governor General of Canada in 1916, so therefore what a great person to name that community after.”

Connaught had been settled but not officially named before then.

- Advertisement -

COCHRANE

The town of Cochrane was originally planned to be a bustling metropolis, a regional hub for the Canadian National railway.

Bachmann relates how Cochrane got its name.

“Cochrane is named for Frank Cochrane, who was the Conservative Minister of Lands and Mines in 1911 and he’s best remembered for the work that he did on the Ontario Mining Act and his big belief in getting Northern Ontario developed and he was really quite an interventionist in those natural resources with the province but got things rolling for Northern Ontario.”

That plan to be a metropolis explains why the major streets in Cochrane are so wide, municipal workers plow snow into the middle of the roads, to be removed later.

- Advertisment -
- Advertisment -
- Advertisement -

Continue Reading