amended to remove it in 1906. Expansion Marsh died in 1904, while work on the railway was still underway. The company was purchased in 1905 by Charles Orlando Shaw, owner of the Anglo-Canadian Leather Company in Huntsville and Bracebridge, which was the largest tannery in the British Empire. The tannery required huge amounts of wood for heating, and hemlock for tanning, and the Portage Railway became a major link in his supply chain. The company's charter was resigned in 1907, and over the next decade he expanded the shipping fleet considerably, before turning to hotel building. Shaw began his hotel construction with the relatively small Wawa Hotel, which opened in 1908 on Norway Point on Lake of Bays. This was a success, and he turned his eye towards a much larger and more lavish destination. He purchased the Bigwin Island from Ojibwe Chief Chevodin (Joseph Big Wind) in 1910, and built the 280 room Bigwin Inn in 1920. The Bigwin was a hit, and became well known in Muskoka for its entertainment. Decline By 1939, the effects of the Great Depression and the opening of other routes led to a decline in business. Peaking at eight steamers, the fleet now had only two. Shaw died in 1942 and the company passed to his son-in-law. The Bigwin Inn was sold in 1947 and the company was passed to Shaw's daughter, Pauline Gill. Operations were turned over to Carl McLennan in 1948, and he had moderate success replacing the now old steamships with modern motorboats. The original Porter locomotives reached the end of their lives in 1948, and were sold to a collector, Cameron Peck of Chicago, and finally came to rest at the Harold Warp Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska. They were replaced by two much larger engines, one coal and one oil-fired, originally built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1926. The oil-fired engine proved to be too heavy and was put into storage. The coal-fired Engine 1 gave the train its new name, Portage Flier. This second life lasted into the 1950s, when the rise of automobile use cut the lake traffic, and the railway shut down in 1959. Moving away, and back With its closure, the railway track and single locomotive were moved to St. Thomas, Ontario, where they were used at the Pinafore Railway Park. In 1984 the locomotive was put up for sale, which coincided with increasing