Dane (ghost town)

When the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway initially formed, its purpose was to allow settlers easier access to the fertile Northern Ontario farmland. That purpose changed during construction of the T&NO when gold and silver deposits were discovered, a discovery that attracting miners from across the world.

Small communities along the T&NO line began to spring to life. In 1906 one such settlement near Kirkland Lake was formed at a location 1.5 kilometres west of the T&NO railway line. The community was named Boston (after the nearby township). As was customary, the railway station would be given its own name. One proposed name was that of Jardine Station but it was discarded in favour of the name Dane, named after the T&NO Railway Commissioner Frederick Dane.

Dane contained a siding, flag station and J.J. Corbeil’s general store with post office. With nearby Larder Lake experiencing a gold rush, the government added the 12-mile Dane Road through the bush that joined Dane to Larder Lake.

As there was no railway leading to Larder Lake’s gold fields, Dane was the closest stop where passengers could disembark the train and board a stagecoach to the gold mines. The road further allowed freight companies to set up operations in Dane where they could ship in materials by railway and ship out materials by coach to the nearby mine camps.

As Dane’s population grew, a small schoolhouse was built (1908) as well as two hotels. Homes and boarding houses were built to accommodate the miners, prospectors and their families.

By 1909 the population reached almost 600 residents. When the Larder Lake gold rush subsided the following year, the population fell to approximately 200 residents.

In 1946 the name of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway was changed to the Ontario Northland Railway (ONR) due to confusion with an American rail line with the same initials.

Over the years, residents of Dane moved away to work in nearby gold mines or found other work and the settlement’s importance diminished. In 1958 the train station was dismantled and the school was closed.

In 1955 a large iron deposit was found just east of Dane and a mine was developed beginning in 1963 which would become the Adams Mine. The government constructed the five mile Highway 650 that lead from highway 112 to the site of the Adams Mine.

Production at Adams Mine began in 1964 but it wasn’t enough to sustain Dane’s future. By this time the last remaining hotel, the store and post office had closed. Today Dane consists of a handful of original homes and the pile of rubble which used to be the hotel (demolished in 2007).

Dane Road is located at the junction of highways 112 and 650. The original Dane was located where the ONR meets highway 650.