Frank, Alberta
locality in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, Canada
Frank is an urban community in the Rocky Mountains within the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass in southwest Alberta, Canada. It was formerly incorporated as a village prior to 1979 when it amalgamated with four other municipalities to form Crowsnest Pass.
History
In 1901, American entrepreneurs Sam Gebo and Henry Frank developed the first of many coal mines in the Crowsnest Pass, in the base of Turtle Mountain. In May that year the first buildings were erected in the new community of Frank, located on flat land between the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks and the mine. The community was incorporated as the Village of Frank on September 3, 1901.
The community's grand opening on September 10, 1901 was an all-day event that included sporting competitions (with engraved medals for the victors), tours of the mine, a banquet, and a dance. Two special trains brought in the guests and the gourmet food (including a ton of ice cream). Henry Frank presided over the event, which was attended by the premier Frederick W. A. G. Haultain, his public works minister, and federal Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton. Frank became the first incorporated village in the Crowsnest Pass and by 1903 served 1,000 people with two dozen businesses and services, a two-story brick school, and a regional post office.
The Frank Slide on April 29, 1903 destroyed much of the mine's infrastructure, several rural businesses, and seven houses on the outskirts of Frank, killing 70–90 people.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Frank, Alberta” as locality in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, Canada. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5484817. Authority coordinates are 49.601, -114.406. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 1901 and 1903.
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This entry incorporates text from “Frank, Alberta” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.