Nantes () is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in Le Granit Regional County Municipality in the

Estrie Estrie () is an administrative region of Quebec that comprises the Eastern Townships. ''Estrie'', a French neologism, was coined as a derivative of ''est'', "east". Originally settled by anglophones, today it is about 90 per cent francophone. Angl ...

region of

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, Canada. It is situated between Stornoway and Lac-Mégantic, where the Canadian Pacific Railway used to cross. Its population in the Canada 2011 Census was 1,374.

History

Nantes used to be called Spring Hill. In 1856, Scottish settlers established their camps. It was called Drum-A-Vack in Gaelic. French-Canadian families took over the camps in 1905. A train station and a postal office were added to the community in 1879 and in 1898, two sawmills, two telegraph offices, and two general stores were added as well. Nantes has the distinction of having the last electro-mechanical telephone exchange in the public network of North America, finally converting to digital in 2002. On July 6, 2013, a

Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway was a Class II freight railroad that operated in the U.S. states of Maine and Vermont and the Canadian province of Quebec between 2002 and 2014. It was headquartered in Hermon, Maine. Its Canadian subsid ...

train engine was left unmanned and parked on the line. The engine caught fire and was extinguished by the Nantes Fire Department. In the process of extinguishing the fire, the fire department turned off the engine. As the engine had been turned off, the brake system began to lose pressure, eventually dropping to the point the brakes could no longer hold the train in place. The train rolled away from Nantes, towards

Lac-Mégantic, Quebec Lac-Mégantic () is a town in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec, Canada. It is located on Lac Mégantic, a freshwater lake after which the town was named. Situated in the former Frontenac County in the historic Eastern Townships, Lac-Mé ...

, and derailed there, causing an explosion that destroyed around half of the downtown area and killed forty-seven people.

Twin town

* Nantes,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Gallery

References

External links

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{{authority control Municipalities in Quebec Incorporated places in Estrie Le Granit Regional County Municipality