This week in our local history feature, a prospector who worked his way through the bush to this area, even before it became the Porcupine Mining Camp.
Timmins Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann says Charles Auer was a geologist from Detroit. In 1907, he made his way through Cobalt, Gowganda, Kirkland Lake and Larder Lake, even before mineral discoveries were made there.
“You know, was snooping and then made his way to Nighthawk,” she remarks. “He made a discovery on Gold Island in Nighthawk (Lake), started his Nighthawk Peninsula Mines.”
Eventually, Auer he moved into Timmins and started a settlement next to the Mattagami River.
Bachmann says his family understood the need for development.
“That was during the Porcupine Gold Rush. They settled that area. They divided it up into lots, and they had 100 families actually living on their lots by about the 1920s.”
That’s the beginning of Mattagami Heights. The Auer family’s home, known as the log cabin, still stands at the end of Wilson Ave. It’s in the city’s heritage registry.
We’ll have more about Charles Auer in the weeks ahead.
