John Munro Longyear

John Munro Longyear Sr. was an American businessman and noted developer of timber and mineral lands in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Minnesota who became the central figure behind the Arctic Coal Company, which surveyed and mined coalfields on Spitsbergen, from 1905 to 1916. This company developed a settlement on Spitsbergen able to accommodate up to around 500 people which became known as Longyear City, now Longyearbyen, adjacent Advent Bay.