Introduction

Sir Alexander Galt Museum and Archives, 2005

"Lethbridge ... the Coal City in the Wheat Country." In the title for its Fourth Annual Publicity Number in 1912, The Lethbridge Herald went to the heart of what made Lethbridge and southwestern Alberta distinct in western Canada. The backbone of Canada's prairie history was the development of agriculture and the grain economy. Lethbridge, by comparison, was literally built on coal. The people of Lethbridge were to mine the coal, build the factories and make the products needed by the immigrants pouring onto the northern plains. How this dream of industrial empire played out in the remote southwestern corner of the Canadian prairies is a tale of international politics and finance, and the burning vision of a Father of Confederation.