page_title: Patrick Burns (businessman)
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: Patrick Burns (businessman) / Later years
caption_attribution_description: R.B. Bennett at the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede.
context_page_description: Patrick Burns was a Canadian rancher, meat packer, businessperson, senator, and philanthropist. A self-made man of wealth, he built one of the world's largest integrated meat-packing empires, P. Burns & Co., becoming one of the wealthiest Canadians of his time. He is honoured as one of the Big Four western cattle kings who started the Calgary Stampede in Alberta in 1912.
  He made his fortune in the meat industry, but ranching was his true passion. Burns' 700,000 acres of cattle ranches covered so vast an area of Southern Alberta that he boasted about being able to travel from Cochrane to the US border without ever leaving his land.
  In 1931, he was appointed to the Canadian Senate as a representative for Alberta. On October 16, 2008, the Calgary Herald named Burns as Alberta's Greatest Citizen.
context_section_description: By the Great War, Burns had become one of Canada's most successful businessmen and had butcher shops and abattoirs all across Western Canada. He had over 100 retail meat shops in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. He also established 65 creameries and cheese factories, 11 wholesale provision houses and 18 wholesale fruit houses. He extended his empire overseas and set up agencies in London, Liverpool and Yokohama. In 1928, Burns Foods generated sales of about $40 million, equal to about a billion dollars in present-day terms.
  In 1928, he sold his interests in Burns Foods for $15 million to Dominion Securities and the company was renamed Burns & Co. Ltd. In the sale, Burns retained control over his true passion, his vast cattle ranches, which covered so much of Southern Alberta that he could travel from Cochrane to the US border without ever leaving his land. At the height of his empire, his assets included nearly 700,000 acres (2,800 km²) of ranch land, roughly the size of Luxembourg. One of his most prized possessions was the Bar U Ranch, south of Calgary, which was among the largest in the country and one of the first and most enduring large corporate ranches of the West. Under George Lane, it had achieved an international repute as a centre of breeding excellence for cattle and purebred Percheron horses. Burns acquired the property from Lane's estate after his close friend died in 1925. Some of the other ranches in his possession were Willow Creek, Glengarry (44), Bradfield, Two Dot, Rio Alto, Linehum, Flying E, and C.K.
  In 1931, he was appointed to the Senate of Canada by his close friend, R. B. Bennett, to represent the senatorial division of Northern Alberta. In making the announcement, Prime Minister Bennett had this to say about him: “Holding your wealth as a trust, you have given generously to every good cause and your life has been an inspiration to the younger generation.” He sat as an independent until he resigned for health reasons in 1936.
  He was predeceased by both his wife, Eileen, and their son, Patrick Michael. He died in Calgary on February 24, 1937 with his nephew John and other family at his side. He is buried alongside his son in St. Mary's Cemetery in Calgary.
  Upon his death, he left his estate to his nieces and nephews and many charities. The tax on his estate was enough to offset the provincial deficit and balance the budget. As a result, the Social Credit Party chose to eliminate the Provincial Sales Tax permanently.
caption: Burns and R. B. Bennett at the Calgary Stampede in 1928
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