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Colourful mayors in Timmins’ past

Two weeks from now, Timmins will have a new mayor. So we’re devoting our local history feature to early mayors of the town and city.

Timmins Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann says there have been several colourful characters in the office.

The first was W.H. Wilson, when a term was for one year.

“He was actually acclaimed in 1912, and then he was acclaimed in 1913, and then he was acclaimed in 1914, all the way up to 1916,” Bachmann recounts. “He never ran in an election, because nobody wanted the job, obviously.”

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One year in the 1920s, the contest between Dr. J.A. MacInnes and E.G. Dickson became very vicious.

“The night of the election, Mr. Dickson won,” says Bachmann, “so proceeded to parade around in the streets with a great group of people who were dragging an effigy of Dr. MacInnes behind their car, and then set it on fire.”

People said that’s not really what we do here, so peacemaking between the two men took place, and Dickson never got a second term.

Next week:  The mayor known widely as “Leo”.

J.A. MacInnes
E.G. Dickson
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