Kentville

Kentville, NS, incorporated as a town in 1886, population 6094 (2011c), 5815 (2006c). The Town of Kentville is located on the Cornwallis River, 110 km northwest of Halifax. Kentville was settled in the 1760s by New Englanders with lots at the western end of Horton, one of 13 townships established by the NS government after the expulsion of the Acadians. Known to the MICMAC as Penook ("fording place") and to the New Englanders as Horton Corner, it was, because of its location at a bend in the Cornwallis R, a natural crossing point between Horton and Cornwallis townships. It became shire town of Kings County at the end of the 18th century and, being at the junction of 7 roads, grew into a commercial centre, serving agricultural villages and hamlets in the ANNAPOLIS LOWLANDS.

Named Kentville in honour of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, in 1826, the community thrived when the Windsor-Annapolis Ry (later Dominion Atlantic) established its headquarters there in 1868 and began shipping Annapolis Valley apples to British markets. Government facilities followed, including a militia installation at Camp Aldershot (1904) and the 183 ha Kentville Agricultural Research Centre (1910), which has been renovated and is now one of the most modern and sophisticated research centres in Canada. Although the British fruit market collapsed with WWI and trucking of freight replaced rail transport, Kentville has survived, remaining the area's financial, medical and government centre.