Cobalt is “the cradle of Canada’s mining industry”
 

1.Without the construction of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway pushing north from Lake Nipissing, the unprecedented discovery of silver at Cobalt may never have happened. This view of the busy Cobalt train station is circa 1908; 2.Fred LaRose was the second major discoverer of silver in Cobalt. Following the footsteps of Jim McKinley and discoverer Ernest Darragh, who struck a rich run of silver in 1903, Mr. LaRose soon forgot he was a railroad labourer and quickly became a prosperous Cobalt miner by 1905.

3.Cobalt in 1908; 4.Disasters always lurked such as this Cobalt fire, ca 1906 (1-4/C.J. Humber Collection)