Lethbridge was born in the late 1800s as a coal mining community known at the time as Coalbanks. The city is located 215 km southeast of Calgary above the steep Old Man River Valley. Before the arrival of settlers, the area was part of the summer hunting grounds of the Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) and a park in the river valley commemorates the defeat of a Cree war party by Kainai (Blood) and Piikani (Peigan) people and the Cree. The name Lethbridge was chosen early in the community's history in honour of William Lethbridge, an original shareholder in the Northwest Coal and Navigation Company - the first coal company to operate in the area. The community economy soon diversified into lumber when the Galt family, the owners of Lethbridge's first mine, developed a sawmill beneath the current location of the High Level Bridge. The community's growth skyrocketed after the Canadian Pacific Railway moved their Crowsnest line division point from Fort Macleod to Lethbridge. With the rise of agriculture in the area, the townsite moved out of the river valley onto the fertile lands of the prairie. After the Second World War, the people of Lethbridge increasingly used automobiles, allowing the city to develop further away from the city centre. Lethbridge's last coal mine closed in 1957, but the mine's tipple, water tower, and machinery buildings were left behind as a reminder of the city's coal mine origins.

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 Lethbridge