Lloydminster is a city in Canada which has the unusual geographic distinction of straddling the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan.[9] The city is incorporated by both provinces as a single city with a single municipal administration.
Located in the heart of Treaty 6, Lloydminster is the traditional homeland of the Plains Cree, Wood Cree, Dene, Saulteaux and Homeland of the Metis.[10]
Intended to be an exclusively British utopian settlement centred on the idea of sobriety, Lloydminster was founded in 1903 by the Barr Colonists, who came directly from the United Kingdom.[11] At a time when the area was still part of the North-West Territories, the town was located astride the Fourth Meridian of the Dominion Land Survey. This meridian was intended to coincide with the 110° west longitude, although the imperfect surveying methods of the time led to the surveyed meridian being placed a few hundred metres (yards) west of this longitude.[12]
The town was named for George Lloyd, an Anglican priest who would become Bishop of Saskatchewan in 1922. Lloyd was a strong opponent of non-British immigration to Canada. During a nearly disastrous immigration journey, which was badly planned and conducted,[13] he distinguished himself with the colonists and replaced the Barr Colony's leader and namesake Isaac Montgomery Barr during the colonists' journey to the eventual townsite.[citation needed]
The town developed rapidly: by 1904, there was a telegraph office as well as a log church; in 1905, the Lloydminster Daily Times started publication and the first train arrived on July 28.[14] Its main north–south street, today named Meridian Avenue (or 50th Avenue), along which stores, businesses and the post office began locating, was situated right on the Fourth Meridian, although the actual road right-of-way was located in Saskatchewan.[citation needed] To comply with temperance principles, alcohol was not available in Lloydminster for the first few years after its founding.[citation needed]
While provincehood of some sort for the prairie territories was seen as inevitable by 1903, it had been widely expected[by whom?] that only one province would eventually be created instead of two. The colonists were not aware of the federal government's deep-rooted opposition to the creation of a single province nor plans for a provincial boundary along the Fourth Meridian (110° W).[citation needed]