Merchant.
Born in the United States around 1833, he was a pioneer merchant of the Red River Settlement (Winnipeg), beginning in 1859, and later partnering with John Higgins. He continued in general retail trade until about 1880. He was for some years a member of the wholesale grocery firm of Lyon, Mackenzie and Powis, later called Mackenzie and Company, and President of the Winnipeg & Western Transportation Company that operated steamboats on the Red and Assiniboine rivers in the 1870s and early 1880s. He acquired considerable city property and owned the buildings occupied by Thompson, Codville & Company, and later by the Ferguson Stationery Company. He was a Winnipeg city alderman for one term. In 1873, he was one of the founders of the Winnipeg Board of Trade. He was a participant in the December 1878 ceremony to mark the opening of the first railway to Winnipeg. After retiring from the retail business in Winnipeg, he returned to the United States, to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he died on 28 February 1897 and was buried.
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Mackenzie and Powis Building (78-84 Princess Street, Winnipeg)
“W. H. Lyon dead,” Winnipeg Tribune, 1 March 1897, page 5.
Pioneers and Early Citizens of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Manitoba Library Association, 1971.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 19 May 2018
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