Peter Anthony Prince

Prince was born in Three Rivers, Quebec in 1836 and was educated in Ontario. He worked for six years as a millwright for his father. In 1865, he moved to Chicago, and found work in construction. He later traveled to Wisconsin, following a developing lumber boom, erecting several lumber mills in the area. He soon was placed in charge of 500 men in his position of manager for the North Western Lumber Company. 

At the request of the Eau Claire and Bow River Lumber Company, Prince arrived in Calgary to build and manage a sawmill. In 1886, Prince deepened an already existing channel in order to float logs directly to the sawmill, creating a peninsula. Eventually the middle section of the peninsula was destroyed, creating an island.  The island is currently a park, and aptly named Prince's Island. He served as manager of the mill from 1885 to 1916. 

The Eau Claire sawmill was the city's main source of lumber until the First World War, and was in operation until 1945. Calgary became one of the major logging centres of Canada, east of Vancouver. Prince married Marguerite Corogan in 1857, and they had two children. After her death, he married Marie Struelens in 1909, who lived in Calgary until her death. Prince died in 1925.