The Port Arthur, Duluth and Western Railway Company
The railway which once ran nearby was originally incorporated in 1883 as the Thunder Bay Colonization Railway Company. Promoted during the Thunder Bay silver mining boom of the 1880's to serve the mining region southwest of Port Arthur and to tap the Mesabi iron ore deposits of northern Minnesota, the line was renamed the Port Arthur, Duluth and Western Railway Company in 1887. Financed mainly by subsidies and bond issues, when completed in 1893 it ran some 130 km from Port Arthur to its Canadian terminus at Gunflint Lake, then continued 10 km into Minnesota. The collapse of the silver boom dashed the company's hopes and in 1899 the line was purchased by the Canadian Northern Railway Company.
Plaque via Alan L. Brown's site Ontario Plaques. Full page here.