Charles Winnans Cox (July 7, 1882 - March 28, 1958) was an Ontario politician and timber contractor. Born on a farm in Westminster Township, Middlesex County, Ontario, he first worked as a farm and ranch hand near Nanton, Alberta , then moved to Port Arthur, Ontario about 1908. He became one of the largest timber contractors in the Thunder Bay region, then branched into general contracting. First elected as a councillor of Port Arthur in 1932, he became mayor in 1934 and would serve until 1948, being re-elected for 15 years. A supporter of the Conservative party while they were in power, he sought the Liberal nomination for Port Arthur riding in June 1934 and was elected to the Ontario legislature taking 58.9% of the votes cast. Liberal Premier Mitchell Hepburn named him to cabinet as a minister without portfolio in December 1936. Any chances of remaining a cabinet minister vanished in February 1937 when one of his love affairs went sour and a 32 year old teacher threw acid at him, scarring his handsome face and impairing the sight in his left eye. The scandal did not hurt him locally and he was re-elected in October 1937, but not re-appointed to cabinet. He was defeated in the 1943 Ontario election, and as an Independent Liberal in the 1945 Ontario election. Always an unpredictable and controversial figure, he astonished most observers by running and getting elected in the neighbouring riding of Fort William, Ontario in the 1948 Ontario election as the Liberal MPP. That same year, still the retiring mayor of Port Arthur, he brazenly ran for mayor of Fort William but lost to Hubert Badanai . He ran in the 1950 Ontario Liberal leadership convention placing sixth with 24 votes. He went down to defeat in the 1951 Ontario election. His last political victory came in 1952 when he was again elected as mayor of Port Arthur. The death of his wife in July 1953 marked the end of his political career. He died in March 1958, tending furnace in a building he owned. A reporter for the Port Arthur News-Chronicle observed at his death, "An astute if unruly mayor he was once described as a man always in or on the brink of a consummate rage. Under a robust growth of steely-gray hair, his corrugated features approximated those of a truculent bulldog. He had the self-assurance of a man used to victory at the polls and was given to taunting his opponents with a tongue like a flame-thrower. "I can be mayor of Port Arthur as long as I wish", he said not long before his voluntary retirement from that position. "Do you think any other mayor is talked about as much as I am."