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An Eccentric Tycoon Left a Fortune to the Winner of a Baby-Making Contest. The Great Stork Derby Divided Canadians During the Great Depression

Smithsonian Magazine·Jordan Friedman·about 1 month ago
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In his will, Charles Vance Millar offered roughly 500,000 Canadian dollars to the mother who “has since my death given birth to the greatest number of children” A 1936 photo of the Timleck family, one of four winners of the Great Stork Derby Toronto Star Archives via Getty Images Before his sudden death on Halloween in 1926, the wealthy Toronto lawyer and financier Charles Vance Millar built a reputation as a bachelor and a prankster. In one of his favorite practical jokes, he would place money on a sidewalk and hide nearby, roaring with laughter at people’s reactions as they contemplated their next move. Undoubtedly eccentric, Millar amassed a fortune by investing in breweries, real estate and infrastructure. He once modernized a stagecoach company in western Canada by replacing horses with automobiles. Millar never married or had children, and he had no living relatives when he suffered a fatal heart attack at age 72.…

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