Lille
Former locality
82 G
Situated in the Crowsnest Pass
Originally known as French Camp, Lille was the first of several towns and mines run by a French/Belgium consortium, West Canadian Collieries. Begun by J. J. Fleutot and C. Remy, employees of the British Columbia Gold Fields Ltd., Lille mushroomed from a prospecting coal camp in 1901 to a town of more than 400 people by 1907 only to become a ghost town in 1913. In its prime, Lille boasted a large hotel, a bakery, a hospital, miners' cottages, rooming houses, a butcher shop, a barbershop, a doctor's office, a general store and a post office. The town had three operating mines producing some 901,000 tonnes of bituminous coal in the site's eleven-year history. Changes in the marketplace and increasingly poor quality coal forced the company to close the mines, and thus the town in 1913. Mining equipment and houses were salvaged and moved to Bellevue and Blairmore. All that remains of Lille today are a number of foundations and an impressive row of Bernard coke ovens.