Three Mile Plains

Three Mile Plains, Nova Scotia

Mile 28.05 from Windsor Junction on the Halifax Subdivision (Mile 43.86 from Halifax)

Elevation: 79 feet above sea level

• Next Station East: Newport
• Next Station West: Pembertons

Facilities & Features

• Passenger Station
• Siding (at one time)

Commerce & Industry

A number of gypsum quarries operated around Three Mile Plains which, along with small scale farming, formed the main industry in the community, with many residents also working in nearby Windsor.

Description & History

The community received its named because it is three miles from Windsor and surrounded by views of open fields, as opposed the the forested hills from Newport to Halifax. It was at first owned by several Halifax merchants and sparsely settled by tenant farmers, but the community became an important settlement area during the War of 1812 when African Americans who had escaped slavery in the United States established a the area's long-lasting African Nova Scotian community at Three Mile Plains. The arrival of the railway in the late 1850s brought changes with railway construction damaging the community's school but also leading to leading to the establishment of a post office and the beginning of extensive gypsum quarries in the area. The Highway No. 1 level crossing at Three Mile Plains received one of the DAR's first set of wigwag warning signals and bell in 1938

Gallery

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  1918 Track chart of Three Mile Plains

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  Three Mile Plains Station with RPO catchpost, adjacent farm house and the DAR mainline, undated. See the Three Mile Plains Station page for more photos and information.

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  Gypsum quarry spurs in the Windsor, Three Mile Plains, Dimock's and Newport areas, from Canadian geological map, 1909.

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  Topographic map from Falmouth to Ellershouse circa 1956.

References & Footnotes

• 1969 Memorandum of General Information