James Corrigan (businessman)

James C. Corrigan (May 1, 1846 – December 24, 1908) was a Canadian-American businessman active in the shipping, petroleum refining, iron ore mining and selling, and steel manufacturing industries. He made and lost fortunes in the shipping and refining industries, and was known as "one of the group of men who made Cleveland".

Emigrating to the United States from Canada as a boy, he became a sailor on the Great Lakes. After sailing a boat that shipped refined petroleum, he became involved in petroleum refining in Cleveland, Ohio, and became wealthy. His early years in sailing led him into the shipping industry as an adult, moving iron ore, grain, timber, and other goods. He sued John D. Rockefeller after Rockefeller seized his Standard Oil stock in repayment for mortgages on his vessels, co-founded the Lake Carriers Association, and won a lawsuit which successfully voided a common vessel insurance clause.

He was an early investor in iron mines on the Mesabi, Gogebic, Marquette, Menominee, and Vermilion iron ranges. A small investment in an iron ore dealing businesses, taken in exchange for freight charges, was turned into Corrigan, McKinney & Co., one of the largest independent dealers in iron ore in the United States. He began vertically integrating the company, investing in five different iron smelting businesses before founding the steel firm Corrigan, McKinney Steel shortly before his death.

An avid yachtsman, Corrigan lost nearly all his family when his luxury yacht, the Idler, sank in a storm off Cleveland in 1900. His Ohio country house became the Nagirroc farm, one of the historic country estates in Lake County, Ohio. His New York country house on Dry Island was a regional landmark. A multimillionaire at the time of his death, he left his wealth to family members.

Although he founded five Great Lakes shipping firms and owned the largest independent iron ore mining company in the Midwest, he is best known as the founder of the Corrigan, McKinney Steel company.