LETHBRIDGE

city, southern Alberta, Canada, on the Oldman River, near its junction with the St. Mary River, in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, 135 miles (217 km) south-southeast of Calgary. Founded in the 1880s as a mining town called Coalbanks, it was renamed Lethbridge, after William Lethbridge, president of the Northwest Coal and Navigation Company, upon arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway (1885). While coal is still important, the discovery of oil and natural gas in the vicinity and the growth of agricultural industries has brought about a diversification of the economy. Lethbridge is the centre of an irrigation network, begun in 1900, that has become the most extensive in Canada (more than 1,000,000 acres [400,000 hectares]), watering fields for ranching, grains, and vegetables (especially sugar beets). A replica of Fort Whoop-Up (1860), once notorious for its whiskey trade with the Indians, stands in Indian Battle Park; on the banks of the Oldman River, the park marks the site of the last great encounter (1870) between the Cree and the Blackfoot Indians prior to a peace treaty of 1871. The Nikka Yuko centennial garden (created 1967) is one of the largest authentic Japanese gardens in North America. The city is the provincial headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and holds the annual (July) Whoop-Up Days exhibition and rodeo. The University of Lethbridge was founded in 1967, and Lethbridge Community College in 1957. Inc. town, 1891; city, 1906. Pop. (1991) 60,974.