Malcolm Alexander MacLean

Malcolm Alexander MacLean ( born August 14, 1842 in Tiree, Scotland, † April 4, 1895 in Vancouver ) was a Canadian teacher, businessman and politician. In the years 1886 and 1887 he was the first mayor of the city of Vancouver.

As MacLean was four years old, emigrated with his family to Ontario. After a few years he had earned his living as a teacher, he worked as an employee of Cunard Line in New York City and then opened at the end of the 1860s, small retail businesses in Oshawa and Dundas. 1878 MacLean went to Winnipeg, where he worked in real estate. Due to an economic crisis, he lost almost his entire fortune he, and in 1885 to Hawaii to plant sugar beets there.

MacLean learned of his brother, an assistant of William Cornelius Van Horne, the manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, that a place called Granville was identified as the western terminus of the transcontinental railroad under construction. He arrived there in January 1886 and immediately became involved in local politics and organized a petition to the provincial government. Granville was then given the new name Vancouver and was formally established on 6 April 1886. MacLean was elected on May 3, the first mayor of the new city, he received 242 of 469 votes cast.

After the great fire of 13 June 1886 in which the entire city was destroyed by fire, MacLean organized the immediate reconstruction. Under his leadership, police and fire departments were founded, built roads and bridges, constructed a water supply and sewage system and introduced electric light and gas. In December, he was re-elected for another year and received on May 23, 1887 officially launched the first train of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

After his resignation as mayor MacLean end of 1887 was justice of the peace, police magistrate of Vancouver and Special Commissioner for Immigration in the service of the Canadian government.