Rumors of gold in the Porcupine area had been circulating for some time, but every attempt to start production had resulted in poor returns. In June 1909, a group of prospectors found a rich vein that would eventually become the
Dome Mine, but at the time, it too remained undeveloped. However, the news was now out and prospectors started flowing into the area, resulting in the
Porcupine Gold Rush. In 1909, Benny Hollinger, a young barber from
Haileybury, and his partner, Alex Gillies, started prospecting in the area. When they met the Wilson expedition, they were told that all the good lots were staked for at least west. So they went west, past the already staked-out claims, until they came upon an abandoned test pit near Pearl Lake, where
Reuben D'Aigle had given up three years earlier. The two were exploring the site when Hollinger dug into a mound that demonstrated how unlucky D'Aigle was: ... Benny was pulling moss off the rocks a few feet away, when suddenly he let a roar out of him and threw his hat to me. At first I thought that he was crazy but when I came over to where he was it was not hard to find the reason. The quartz where he had taken off the moss looked as though someone had dripped a candle along it, but instead of wax it was gold. They staked twelve claims near their discovery. Because different sponsors had staked them, they flipped a coin to determine how to divide them. Hollinger won the toss and took the higher ground.Noah Timmins, who had been successful with the La Rose
silver mine in
Cobalt during the
Cobalt silver rush, purchased an option on Hollinger's claims and immediately started work on setting up mining operations. He set out in the fall of 1909 from mile post 222 on the
Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) with a crew of twenty-eight men, two teams of horses, and two tons of supplies. Following an old lumber road, they had to blaze their own trail where the road had become overgrown. They arrived at the mine site on New Year's Day, 1910. Soon, Timmins had acquired 560 acres, which included the Hollinger, Miller, Gillies, Millerton, and Acme Gold claims. The Hollinger was incorporated and the Timmins group formed Canadian Mining and Finance Company Limited. In May 1911, the surface plant was lost to fire. Then the July 1911 Porcupine Fire devastated the area. However, the torrential rains afterwards exposed more
quartz veins. By 1914, the mill was producing 800 tons a day from 54 veins. Electric locomotives were introduced in 1916. Eventually, Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines encompassed 440 acres. By the end of the 1920s, the Hollinger was the largest gold mine in the British Empire and paid annual dividends of more than $5 million. By 1927, a 3.5 mile
aerial tramway was in operation. In the 1930s, Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines built 250 houses which were located in one area of the Town of Timmins. These houses remained in place right up until the late 1970s. The three room homes were designed and built identical to each other in every respect with the exception of the impregnated tar paper the covered them. Every second home was green with a red roof and the other was red with a green roof. By 1945, the mine had 350 miles of underground railway, used by 36 electric locomotives, and 1,500 ore cars. The mine was so big that by the 1960s, it had almost of tunnels. ==Fire==