The Early Development of the Coal Industry: 1874-1914

The growth of the coal industry in Alberta in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was part of a much larger program of national economic development launched by the federal government shortly after Confederation. The plan involved several elements, the most important of which was immigration and agricultural settlement. Starting in the mid-1890s, the government launched an aggressive campaign promoting immigration to Canada and settlement in the Prairie West. Colourful posters showed scenes of happy families surrounded by abundant harvests, appealing to land-hungry immigrants who had no prospect of owning profitable farms in their homelands. By the terms

of the Homestead Act (1872), adult men could claim 65 ha (160 acres) of land in return for a modest ten-dollar filing fee and a promise to break the land, build a dwelling and live there for three years. After a slow start, the campaign gained tremendous momentum in the mid-1890s, as land shortages in Eastern Europe and the American West created an eager audience for the Canadian government’s promises of land and prosperity. The campaign was very successful, and, from 1901 to 1911, the population of the Prairie West grew from 414,000 to 1,328,000 (in that same period, Alberta’s population grew from 73,022 to 374,295).

The second platform in the federal government’s program of economic development was the construction of a transcontinental railway. The railway was an essential part of the government’s overall plan, and the government of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald set plans in motion to start building it in the early 1870s. Scandal caused the Macdonald government to fall in 1873, and, with Canada suffering an economic

recession, the cautious government of Alexander Mackenzie suspended the project. Macdonald returned to power in 1878, and two years later, a deal was struck between the federal government and a group of Montreal-based investors to build the transcontinental railway. Construction on the Canadian Pacific Railway began in 1881, and the line reached southern Alberta in1883.

Both immigration and the construction of the railway were essential to the development of Alberta’s coal industry in the nineteenth century. Population growth created a domestic market for coal, while immigration provided the coal companies with their labour force. The link between immigration and the coal industry was anchored by the appointment in 1880 of Alexander Galt to the position of Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Galt was one of the leading figures in the development of southern Alberta’s coal industry, and, as High Commissioner, he was responsible for promoting emigration to Canada and trying to secure the British government’s support for British colonization schemes in the Prairie West. Similarly, railway construction ensured

the viability of the coal industry in Alberta by linking the region to national and international markets. The arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1883, as well as the later construction of railway lines throughout southern Alberta, laid the foundation for the explosive growth of the coal industry in the 1890s and beyond.

The development of the coal industry is thus part of a much larger story of nation-building and economic development in southern Alberta. Immigration and railway development laid the foundation for the industry, which attracted investment from eastern Canada, Europe and the United States. By the early 1890s, Alberta was set for one of the greatest natural resource booms in its history.