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"Spokane and The Spokane Country - Pictorial and Biographical - Deluxe Supplement." Vol. II. The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912. (No author listed.) pgs. 30-32.
Various corporate interests claim the attention and profit by the
cooperation of Andrew Laidlaw, who is operating extensively in the coal lands
of the northwest, being financially interested in many of the leading mines of
this section. In developing the natural resources of the district, he is also
contributing to the permanent upbuilding of the country which always has its
root in business activity.
He was born upon a farm near Drumbo, Ontario, Canada, March 2, 1864,
and following his father's death, which occurred ten years later, accompanied
the family on their removal to Wookstock, Oxford county, Ontario, where he
acquired a common and high school education. When his text-books were put
aside, he turned his attention to the printing business, learning the trade,
and at the age of twenty-one, he was business manager and part owner of the
leading newspaper of Woodstock. He thus early showed forth the elemental
strength of his character and called into activity the salient energies and
possibilities of his nature. He remained in Woodstock until 1892, when he
disposed of his interest in the printing business to his partner and removed
to Galt, Ontario, where he purchased the leading newspaper of that town, and
soon afterward began the publication of the first daily paper in the city of
Galt. All this time he was becoming more and more widely acquainted with the
country and its possibilities, and after six years, decided to try his fortune
in the west. Since 1898 he has resided continuously in Spokane. Prior to
his arrival he had conducted a brokerage business in Rossland stocks, and upon
coming to this city, he again entered the brokerage field. Mr. Laidlaw, while
thus operating, went east and raised capital to the amount of about two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in order to acquire a number of copper
properties in the Boundary country near Greenwood and Phoenix, British
Columbia, and he erected the standard prytic smelter at Boundary Falls,
British Columbia, now owned by the Dominion Copper Company. While promoting
this enterprise, Mr. Laidlaw was in Greenwood for the greater part of a year
or more. He became interested in coal lands in the Crow's Nest district in
British Columbia in 1902, and has been actively interested in coal lands and
coal stocks since that time, his holdings in British Columbia and Alberta coal
properties now being very large. Among the different companies with which he
is connected, are the following: Jasper Park Collieries, Limited; Coal
Securities, Limited; Royal Collieries, Limited; Oyster Harbor Collieries,
Limited; Galbraith Coal Company, Limited; Durham Collieries, Limited; Colfax
Coal & Coke Company; People's Coal Company, Limited; The Alberta Coal & Coke
Company; and Princeton Collieries, Limited. Mr. Laidlaw is the secretary and
treasurer of the Imperial Investment Company of Spokane, the ownership of
which he shares with Mrs. Laidlaw, and is the principal owner of the Clay
Products Company of Spokane.
In 1889 Andrew Laidlaw was married at Hamilton, Ontario, to Miss Clara
Laird, and they have two daughters, Ellenore and Phyllis. Theirs is a home of
culture, furnished with everything that wealth can secure, and refined taste
suggests. It is said that every man has a hobby, and if this is so, Mr.
Laidlaw's is horses, for he has a great admiration for horses and in his
stables he has some of the finest heavy harness and saddle horses in America.
Such a record as Mr. Laidlaw has made, needs little comment. Without special
family or pecuniary advantages at the outset of his career, he has made
continuous progress, his success being attributable largely to the fact that
he has thoroughly mastered everything that he has undertaken and has thus been
equipped for further progress. He has never studied any question from but one
standpoint, and has thus been enabled to base his opinions upon clear
understanding, taking into consideration possibilities as well as existing
conditions. Sound judgment has been the basis of his profitable investments,
making his name a conspicuous one in mining circles in the northwest.
Submitted by: Nancy Pratt Melton
* * * * Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies Project. Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the individuals featured in the biographies.