Town of Fort Frances

A Short History of Fort Frances

From Fur Trade to Forest, Fort Frances has long been the centre of activity in the Rainy River District. Located where Rainy Lake flows into the Rainy River, the community is located along a historic traveling network. Fort Frances is the oldest settlement west of Lake Superior. The first European explorer Jacques de Noyon had arrived in the area in 1688, established a wintering post. In 1717, Robutel de la Nouie set up Fort Tekamanigan but soon abandoned it. When explorer Sieur de la Verendrye arrived in the area in 1731, he set up one of the "Postes de la Mer de l'Ouest" at the mouth of the Rainy River. LaVerendrye's expedition opened up the area to the great fur trade companies. The Northwest Company established a post on the lower Rainy River in the 1780's which became the "Athabaska House", an important inland post for the Company's transshipment of goods.

The Hudson Bay Company had established temporary posts along Rainy River in the 1790's but it wasn't until 1818 that a permanent post was established. On June 1, 1830, the governor of the Hudson Bay Company Sir George Simpson visited the "Lac la Pluie" post with his wife, Lady Frances Ramsay Simpson. In honour of her visit, the post was renamed "Fort Frances" on September 25 of that year. In the 1870's the first settlers began arriving in earnest on the "Dawson Route," a transportation network that followed the old fur trade route. Between 1876 and 1878, as part of the Dawson Route, a canal was being built around the waterfalls at Fort Frances but work on the canal was discontinued when it was decided by the federal government to push ahead with the Canadian Pacific Railway. With the arrival of the CPR in Rat Portage (Kenora), steamboats operating on Lake of the Woods and Rainy River became the main transportation link. Additional incentives to settlement occurred with the signing of Treaty Three in 1873 and the passing of the Rainy River Free Grants and Homesteads Act in 1887. About this time logging began to increase in importance.

The railways provided a market for tamarack, cedar, and jack pine ties as well as cedar poles. Sawmills were also being built to take advantage of the huge stands of white pine. By this time Fort Frances had grown well beyond being just a fur trade post. By the time the town was incorporated in 1903 it was the judicial and service center of the district with a main street boasting hotels, offices, and shops typical of a turn of the century frontier community.
Industrialization was becoming a factor in the area, first with the building of the Canadian Northern Railroad between 1901 and 1903 and then with the harnessing of the waterfall beginning in 1905.

Coincidentally in this same year much of the town's business district was destroyed by fire. American entrepreneur E.W. Backus had organized the company which between 1905 and in 1910 built a hydroelectric dam on Rainy River. He then proceeded to build paper mills in International Falls, Minnesota, and in Fort Frances. The completion of the mill in 1914 provided a stable basis for the local economy. In 1912 the Shevlin Clark Company re-located from Rainy River with a large sawmill facility. The facility continued to operate at "The Sorting Gap" location until 1942. The building of the mills included construction of a bridge that became a cornerstone of the local tourism industry. Tourism began to develop in the 1920's and received additional boasts with the completion of highway link to Kenora in 1936 and east to Atikokan and Thunder Bay in 1965. In 2003, the Town of Fort Frances will mark a century of prosperity and promise in the Rainy River District.