HERE WE BEGIN TO MINE THE COAL - Lethbridge, Alberta
Posted by: 
Bon Echo
N 49° 41.914 W 112° 51.617
12U E 365851 N 5506778
Plaque describing the start of coal mining in the area
Waymark Code: WMZ92K
Location: Alberta, Canada
Date Posted: 10/02/2018
Views: 2
According to the plaque, it was the discovery of coal in the banks of the Oldman River that led to the settlement that would become the City of Lethbridge. The plaque is mountain to a stone erected in Indian Battlefield Park, several meters from where the first organized coal mines were located (
visit link)
The plaque reads:
HERE WE BEGIN TO MINE THE COAL
In 1882, William Stafford chose this place for the North West Coal and Navigation Company to begin mining coal, thus determining the location of Lethbridge.
Steamboats and barges took the coal downriver to Medicine Hat, or teams hauled it overland to Fort Macleod and Fort Benton. By 1885, the company has a narrow-gauge railway to Medicine Hat, and by 1890, to Great Falls. Operations expanded to bench land above, and the mines supplied the western prairies with famous Galt coal.
To the superintendents - William Stafford 1882-1896, W.D.L Hardie 1896-1910, and Robert Livingstone 1910-1935, and the hundreds of miners from Nova Scotia, Great Britain, Europe and United States who opened and worked the mines and were the founders of Lethbridge, the Lethbridge Miners Library Club dedicate this cairn. September 2, 1963.