page_title: George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen
section_title: Building the Canadian Pacific Railway
hierarchical_section_title: George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen / Building the Canadian Pacific Railway
caption_attribution_description: English: Following the Bow river from Lake Louise, this curve on the Canadian Pacific Railway was named after Nicholas Morant – a Canadian photographer who worked for the railroad Company. This shot was taken from highway 1A and shows the Canadian rockies in the background. The river's source is the Bow Glacier in the Wapta Icefield and it flows South to Banff and ultimately winds it's way to the Hudson Bay.
context_page_description: George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen, GCVO, known as Sir George Stephen, Bt, between 1886 and 1891, was a prominent Canadian businessman. Originally from Scotland, he made his fame in Montreal and was the first Canadian to be elevated to the Peerage of the United Kingdom. He was the financial genius behind the creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
  He was President of the Bank of Montreal and is remembered as one of the greatest philanthropists of his time: he built a new wing at the Montreal General Hospital, donated generously to various hospitals in Scotland and gave over £1.3 million to the Prince of Wales Hospital Fund in London, working closely with George V. He and his first cousin, Lord Strathcona, purchased the land and then each gave $1 million to the City of Montreal to construct and maintain the Royal Victoria Hospital. His home in Montreal's Golden Square Mile later became the Mount Stephen Club.
  In 1888, he retired to England, living between Brocket Hall and 17 Carlton House Terrace. His first wife is credited with introducing the canoe to Scotland.
context_section_description: Named as the CPR's first president, Stephen oversaw the monumental task of not just negotiating a route across 2,000 miles of forests, swamps, rivers, and mountains; but also raising the necessary funds estimated at $100 million, of which at least half had to be secured. At Hill's suggestion he hired William Cornelius Van Horne to construct three major sections of the track, and his partnership with James Ross proved invaluable to the engineering success of the railway. However, by the end of 1881, Stephen admitted that the project was "assuming dimensions far beyond my calculations". He ceased all other activities, and bringing R.B. Angus to Montreal with him, they devoted all their energies to the world's second transcontinental railroad.
  As Stephen purposefully did not want a long list of investors, the risks were high to all those involved and the CPR found few takers in London and New York City. By 1883, the syndicate was straining under the huge financial obligations being called of them. Stephen was risking almost all of his fortune on the venture and even used his mansion in Montreal as collateral. Hill resigned in 1883, when he realised that his own railroad would be in direct competition with the CPR for eastbound traffic. However, through loyalty to his partners, he held on to half of his shares. Next, Kennedy resigned, depressing the CPR stock even further and making Stephen's increasingly frantic attempts to find capital even more difficult. In the face of this crisis, fellow Montrealer McIntyre resigned in 1884, forcing the other directors to buy his shares and in the process earning himself Stephen's lifelong enmity.
  Using every ounce of his experience in banking, natural flair for persuasion and business acumen, Stephen proved capable of putting together the complicated financing needed to complete the project, despite cost overruns from numerous unanticipated engineering, business and political problems. The final piece in the financial puzzle was secured when, in 1885, he travelled to London for a personal appeal that convinced Lord Revelstoke and Barings Bank to underwrite the sale of £3 million in company stock.
  On 7 November 1885, at Craigellachie, British Columbia, Donald Smith famously hammered home the last spike in the railroad.
  Stephen, Smith, and Angus were the sole members of the original syndicate to have kept their nerve. Their gamble paid off and the success of the first leg of what would soon become the "world's greatest transportation system" almost immediately made them enormously rich.
caption: The CPR track at Morant's Curve, cutting through Banff National Park
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