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Authorized form of name
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
Charles R. Westgate, 1866-1942, was born in England and emigrated to Sudbury, Ontario in 1885. He attended Methodist seminary for two years and then established a business in Montreal. He married Harriet Elizabeth Lewis, 1862-1954, and they had three sons, Charlie, ?-ca. 1918, Bill, ?-ca. 1920s, and John Gordon. Charles had investments in southern Alberta coal mines and ca. 1909 was an officer of the Bow River Centre Collieries Limited. By 1913 he was secretary-treasurer of Prairie Coal Co., a group of Montreal investors who had bought coal deposits along the Bow River near Brooks, Alberta.
The company opened the Bow City Coal Mine in 1909 and set up a town site called Bow City. In 1914 Charles and the family moved to Bow City, and ca. 1919 he bought the company's assets and formed his own called Kleenbirn Collieries, Limited. He also held Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) coal leases and co-owned the People's Coal Mine with T.H. Wiggins. Charles retired in 1937 and Gordon took over. In 1943 Kleenbirn expanded, with government backing, to provide coal for war needs. The company closed its underground mine ca. 1944 in order to concentrate on strip mining begun in 1932. After about 1953 sales fell off to local sales only.