Grand Falls-Windsor

Grand Falls-Windsor is a town located in the central region of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, with a population of 13,725 at the 2011 census. The town is the largest in the central region, the fifth largest in the province, and is home to the annual Exploits Valley Salmon Festival. Grand Falls-Windsor was incorporated in 1991 when the two former towns of Grand Falls and Windsor amalgamated.

History

In 1768, Lieutenant John Cartwright, while following the Exploits River through the Exploits Valley, named the waterfall he found "Grand Falls"; however, it took until 1905 before the town of Grand Falls was established. Worried about the impending war in Europe, Alfred Harmsworth (Baron Northcliffe) began looking for an alternative source of newsprint for his family's newspaper and publishing business. During their search for a suitable location to build and operate a pulp and paper mill, Harold Harmsworth and Mayson Beeton, son of Isabella Beeton, the author of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, discovered Grand Falls. The site had great potential due to access to lumber, the possibility of hydroelectricity and a deep-water port available in nearby Botwood. On January 7, 1905, the Harmsworths and Robert Gillespie Reid, owner of the Newfoundland Railway, formed the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company, and the mill was constructed and opened on October 9, 1909. The first roll of salable newsprint was not produced until December 22, 1909. Workers came from throughout the colony and the world to help develop the new area. At that time, only employees of the mill and workers from private businesses were permitted to live in Grand Falls. Other people settled north of the railway in a shack town known as Grand Falls station.