Price, Sir William National Historic Person
Kénogami, Quebec
William Price, ca. 1924
(© BAnQ Québec, Collection Centre d'archives de Québec, (03Q,P1000,S4,D83,PP60), Photographe non identifié | Photographer not identified.)
Address :
Kénogami, Quebec
Recognition Statute:
Historic Sites and Monuments Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. H-4)
Designation Date:
2003-06-30
Life Date:
1867 to 1924
Other Name(s):
-
Sir William Price
(Designation Name)
Research Report Number:
2002-071
Importance:
Pioneered the shift from the production of sawn lumber to the production of pulp and paper in Canada
Plaque(s)
Existing plaque: Sir William Price Commemorative Park, Kénogami, Quebec
In the early 20th century, Sir William Price established an empire based on lumber and pulp and paper. He joined the family lumber business in 1885, assuming control in 1899 as it teetered on the brink of failure. To diversify his company’s activities, Price bought a pulp mill at Jonquière and helped pioneer the shift from lumber production to pulp and paper, an industrial sector in which Canada would emerge as a world leader by the 1920s. One of his largest mills, built at Kénogami, ranked for a number of years as Canada’s premier producer of newsprint.