Nova Scotia Cotton Manufacturing Company was a cotton mill located in Halifax , Nova Scotia which was founded in 1882 and destroyed with great loss of life by the Halifax Explosion in 1917 . The company was formed as part of an effort to industrialize the Maritime provinces of Canada and switch from merchant shipping to manufacturing under Canada 's National Policy . Typical of the regional enthusiasm for industry in the 1880s , the company was quickly capitalized by 32 local investors within two weeks , drawn from a who 's who of Halifax manufacturers , merchants and business leaders including railway engineer Sandford Fleming . Carefully studying other cotton mills , the company built a state-of-the-art mill on Robie Street in North End , Halifax , bringing in textile workers from Lancashire , England . Halifax City Council paid for water mains and subsidized the construction of a five-mile railway spurline from the Intercolonial Railway 's yards on the waterfront . The " cotton factory spur " , as it came to be known , created Halifax 's first industrial park along Robie Street , attracting other factories such as the Silliker Car Works , the Henderson & Potts Paint factory and later the railway shops of the Canadian Government Railways
Halifax Explosion
Halifax Explosion
Nova Scotia Cotton Manufacturing Company