Lawrencetown

Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia

Subdivision Kentville, Mile 37.1

• Next Station East: Brickton
• Next Station West: Paradise

Facilities & Features

• Lawrencetown Station
• 1019 foot passing track

Commerce & Industry

Lawrencetown was an early centre of commerce in the central Annapolis Valley and an importance apple shipping point during the peak years of the apple industry. Five apple warehouses and an apple evaporator were located in Lawrencetown. The evaporator was run by the M.W. Graves company but burned in February 1938. An annual agricultural fair started in 1927 grew to become the Lawrencetown Exhibition, one of the largest agricultural fairs in Nova Scotia. A school for surveyors founded in Lawrencetown 1948 became the Nova Scotia Land Survey Institute in 1958 and today operates as the Centre of Geographic Sciences, part of the community college system in Nova Scotia. Rail traffic dwindled in the 1960s with the growth of paved highways and services and the decline of the apple industry.

Gallery

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  Lawrencetown Station and one of its early apple warehouses, c. 1890.

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  An early apple warehouse at Lawrencetown, circa 1890

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  Photo of No. 502 arriving at Lawrencetown Station with extended apple warehouse in background, c. 1924-26.

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  VIA Rail sign and the retired 1928 Lawrencetown Station, 1986.

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  VIA Rail sign, 1986.

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  Three generations of Lawrencetown Stations in 1989: VIA Rail sign, the retired 1887 station in farmyard and the retired 1928 station on far right.

References & Footnotes

• Alexander MacNab, Windsor and Annapolis Railway, Report of Alexander MacNab Nov 1, 1873
• 1969 Memorandum of General Information, "Lawrencetown", page 12
• History of Lawrencetown, Lawrencetown Consolidated School (1977)
• Bruce Ferguson, Lawrencetown, Annapolis Country", Places and Place Names of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Archives, pages 348-349