page_title: Kentville
section_title: Growth
hierarchical_section_title: Kentville / History / Growth
caption_attribution_description: English: Kentville Railway Station platform and Aberdeen Street with Dominion Atlantic Railway train approaching, circa 1910. Also shown is the T. L. Dodge hardware store, the local dealer for Massey Harris farm machinery. Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada.
context_page_description: Kentville is a town in Kings County, Nova Scotia. It is one of the main towns in the Annapolis Valley, and it is the county seat of Kings County. As of 2016, the town's population was 6,271. Its census agglomeration is 26,222.
context_section_description: When the Windsor and Annapolis Railway (later named Dominion Atlantic Railway) established its headquarters in Kentville in 1868 and began shipping Annapolis Valley apples to British markets, the community began to thrive. The railway not only employed a large number of people, up to a third of the town's population, but also attracted other industries such as mills, dairies, a large foundry, and a carriage works which even entered automobile production.  A branchline of the Dominion Atlantic, the Cornwallis Valley Railway, was built north to Canning and Kingsport in 1889 furthering developing the apple industry and creating a suburban line for workers, shoppers and schoolchildren to commute to Kentville. The railway also attracted large institutional developments such as a large regional TB hospital, the Kentville Sanitorium, a federal agricultural research station, and an army training base at Camp Aldershot.
  The town became a major travel centre highlighted by the large Cornwallis Inn built at the town's centre by the railway. The town boomed during World War I and World War II with heavy wartime railway traffic on the Dominion Atlantic and the training of thousands of troops at Camp Aldershot. Many residents fought overseas in the local West Nova Scotia Regiment as well as other branches of service. A Royal Canadian Navy minesweeper HMCS Kentville was named after the town, and her crew often took leave in Kentville.
caption: Aberdeen Street, Kentville as passenger train arrives, c. 1910
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