🏚️ Lille, Alberta

Lille is a ghost town and former village in the Crowsnest Pass area of southwest Alberta, Canada. It was a company-built coal mining community that, between 1901 and 1912, hosted a population that grew to over 400. The mines at Lille closed in 1912, due primarily to weak coal prices, increasing production costs, and the increasingly poor quality of the coal. The community was then dismantled and most of its structures were moved elsewhere. Today the site is an Alberta Provincial Historic Resource and is known for the elegant ruins of a set of Bernard-style coke ovens that was imported from Belgium.