Patrick Burns (July 6, 1856 – February 24, 1937) was a Canadian rancher, meat packer, businessperson, senator, and philanthropist. A self-made man of wealth, he built one of the world's largest integrated meat-packing empires, P. Burns & Co., becoming one of the wealthiest Canadians of his time. He is honoured as one of the Big Four western cattle kings who started the Calgary Stampede in Alberta in 1912. He made his fortune in the meat industry, but ranching was his true passion. Burns' of cattle ranches covered so vast an area of Southern Alberta that he boasted about being able to travel from Cochrane to the US border without ever leaving his land. In 1931, he was appointed to the Canadian Senate as a representative for Alberta. On October 16, 2008, the Calgary Herald named Burns as Alberta's Greatest Citizen. Early life Patrick O'Byrne was born in Oshawa, Ontario, on July 6, 1856, the fourth of eleven children of Michael and Bridget O'Byrne. His parents had emigrated from County Mayo, Ireland in 1848 due to the Great Famine, and as part of the naturalization process, the family name was shortened to Byrne and then later to Burns. The family moved from the Oshawa area northward in the spring of 1864 to the small community of Kirkfield, Ontario, where Burns spent a majority of his childhood. Patrick had very little formal schooling but learned a great deal about hard work and thriftiness from his parents. He spent his last summer in Kirkfield chopping wood for a neighbour. He had intended to save enough money to travel out west, but when it came time for him to collect his pay, he discovered that his employer did not have enough cash to cover the $100 he was owed for his labour and so was instead given two oxen as payment. They had a resale value of $70, but he saw an alternative. He made $140 by slaughtering the animals and reselling their meat and byproducts. That experience was one that he would remember when he was as an entrepreneur. With his brothers John and Dominic in 1878 he head out west at the age of 22. They started out by steamer, but when they reached Rat Portage, he feared that if he paid for transportation the rest of the way, he might lack funds on his arrival. Undaunted, he bought some bread and