Lamont is a town in central Alberta, Canada. It is located 60 km east of Edmonton at the junction of Highway 15 and Highway 831.

History

Settlement began in the 1880s. The area's location along the Victoria Trail, which was used by travellers between Edmonton and Winnipeg through most of the 1800s, aided the area's growing prosperity. This Victoria Trail was a road that ran south of the river, the so-called "plain [plains] trail." (A better known alternative route under the same name ran along the north bank and is now memorialized by the Victoria Trail in Edmonton.) The town was named in honour of Canadian politician John Henderson Lamont. Lamont was assigned a Royal Mail Canada post office in 1906, before being incorporated as a village in 1910. The Lamont Hospital opened in 1912, serving the entire region. On November 29, 1960, a school bus carrying students from nearby Chipman to school in Lamont was struck by a train, killing 17 students (15 girls and two boys). The collision occurred on the east side of town at a crossing just north of Highway 15 before 9:00 am.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Town of Lamont had a population of 1,744 living in 684 of its 743 total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of 1,774. With a land area of 9.14 km2, it had a population density of in 2021. In the 2016 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Town of Lamont recorded a population of 1,774 living in 664 of its 695 total private dwellings, a NaN% change from its 2011 population of 1,753. With a land area of 9.2 km2, it had a population density of in 2016.

Media

The Lamont Leader is a weekly newspaper that serves Lamont.

Notable people