Henry Black

Who was Henry Black?

Henry Black, CBE was a contractor, real estate developer and apartment block owner in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He served as an Alderman, Mayor, member of the Regina School Board, Regina Collegiate Board, Regina General Hospital Board and as Chairman of the Saskatchewan Relief Commission. He was married to Jennie Lenore Barker and they had five children: Henry Kenneth, a Regina architect and engineer, Charles Russell, a physician in Toronto, William Franklin a property manager in Regina, Elizabeth Lenore and Thomas Murray, a Regina obstetrician and gynaecologist.

Black was born in Grenville County, Ontario in 1875, one of a family of nine. After completing his education, he managed the general store at a railway construction camp in Leonard Station, Ontario. In 1899 he moved to Kaslo, British Columbia, a mining town, where he operated a lumber, coal and cartage business.

He arrived in Regina in 1902 and became a contractor, first specializing in house building, then commercial and public buildings. In the years before Black arrived in Regina, there was only one house builder, but in the next few years the boom came and he built around 150 houses - a record for those days.