Frank Oliver Fowler (1861-1945)

Grain dealer, MLA (1896-1899), MLA (1900-1903), Mayor of Winnipeg (1922).

Born in Wingham, Ontario on 14 December 1861. After his education in the public and high schools, he worked in a saw mill until, at the age of 20, he came west and farmed near Brandon for 11 years. In 1891 he started a grain business at Wawanesa where he met and married Elizabeth Nichol. He served as Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Oakland from 1892 to 1894. The Fowler family moved to Winnipeg in 1902, where he was appointed secretary-treasurer of the North West Grain Dealers’ Association and manager of the Winnipeg Grain and Produce Clearing Association.

He served in civic politics, first as a Winnipeg City Alderman starting in 1908. In 1918 he introduced a motion denying all civic employees the right to strike, which narrowly passed Council by a vote of nine to eight. On 26 May 1919 he co-introduced a motion prohibiting firemen from belonging to any union affiliated with an organization that could give it commands contradictory to Council’s orders. It passed by a vote of nine to five. He was later Mayor of Winnipeg, elected by acclamation in 1922. During his term in office, the city’s hydroelectric system was built and the Greater Winnipeg Water District was organized.

He was a close associate of Clifford Sifton and John W. Dafoe. He was a founding member, in 1905, of the St. Charles Country Club.

Fowler died on 18 February 1945. He is commemorated by Fowler Street in Winnipeg.

Sources:

This profile is based, in part, on information compiled by historian Harry Shave.

Ramsay Cook (editor), The Dafoe-Sifton Correspondence, 1919-1927. The Manitoba Record Society, 1966.

Profile revised: 7 November 2009

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