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![[Baie-Comeau]](../images/c/ca-qcbco.gif)
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Ivan Sache, 25 March 2017See also:
The municipality of Baie-Comeau (21,536 inhabitants in 2016; 33,456 ha) is
located on the northern coast of the estuary of the Saint Lawrence River, 400
km north-east of the town of Quebec.
Baie-Comeau was incorporated as a
new town on 20 May 1937, achieving a development scheme submitted in January
1923 by Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick (1880-1955) to the provincial
government of Quebec. Robert Rutherford McCormick was appointed in 1911
President of the Board of Directors of The Chicago Tribune. He convinced the
shareholders to advance 1 million USD to establish the newspaper's own paper
mill. In 1915, he purchased the rights of exploitation on the forests of
Rivière aux Rochers, a deserted area he had explored himself. The First World
War delayed the organization of the concession; McCormick enrolled in the US
Army and earned the rank of Colonel on the French battlefields.
The manager
of Baie-des-Cèdres, submitted in 1922 to McCormick a report of his exploration
of rivers Manicouagan and Outardes, describing huge forest resources. The
Manicouagan project was officially initiated on 30 January 1923. McCormick had
to pay an annuity of more than 6,000 USD and had to build, within seven years, a
pulp or paper mill on the site. The building of the wharf of Comeau Bay started
in 1930, but the whole project was stopped by the economical crisis. McCormick
resumed the project in 1934, renegotiating the contract. The new town adopted
the name already used since 1929 by the office of the Federal Post, as Comeau
Bay. The first paper mill was inaugurated on 15 February 1938; Baie-Comeau was
visited in October 1983 by the Board of Directors of the Chicago Herald.
https://www.ville.baie-comeau.qc.ca/ - Municipal website
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/13/reviews/mccormick-obit.html -
McCormick's obituary, The New York Times, 1 April 1955
Baie-Comeau was
named for the naturalist Napoléon-Alexandre Comeau (1846-1923), whose book "La
vie et le sport sur la Côte-Nord" (1945), contributed to popularize the area;
Comeau is also considered as a local hero since he saved in 1886 a group of
people blocked by the ice on the St. Lawrence River.
http://www.toponymie.gouv.qc.ca/CT/toposweb/fiche.aspx?no_seq=3026 -
Commission de toponymie
Ivan Sache, 25 March 2017