Template:Wp-Lloydminster, Alberta/Saskatchewan-History

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Intended to be an exclusively British utopian settlement centred on the idea of sobriety, Lloydminster was founded in 1903 by the Barr Colonists, who came directly from the United Kingdom. At a time when the area was still part of the North-West Territories, the town was located astride the Fourth Meridian of the Dominion Land Survey. This meridian was intended to coincide with the 110° west longitude, although the imperfect surveying methods of the time led to the surveyed meridian being placed a few hundred metres (yards) west of this longitude.

The town was named for George Lloyd, an Anglican priest who would become Bishop of Saskatchewan in 1922. Lloyd was a strong opponent of non-British immigration to Canada. During a nearly disastrous immigration journey, which was badly planned and conducted, he distinguished himself with the colonists and replaced the Barr Colony's leader and namesake Isaac Montgomery Barr during the colonists' journey to the eventual townsite.

The town developed rapidly: by 1904, there was a telegraph office as well as a log church; in 1905, the Lloydminster Daily Times started publication and the first train arrived on July 28. Its main north-south street, today named Meridian Avenue (or 50th Avenue), along which stores, businesses and the post office began locating, was situated right on the Fourth Meridian, although the actual road right-of-way was located in Saskatchewan.

While provincehood of some sort for the prairie territories was seen as inevitable by 1903, it had been widely expected that only one province would eventually be created instead of two. The colonists were not aware of the federal government's deep-rooted opposition to the creation of a single province and thus had no way of knowing that the Fourth Meridian (110° W) was under consideration as a future provincial boundary. Had they known, it is very unlikely that they would have sited the new settlement on the future border.

When the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were created in 1905, the Fourth Meridian was selected as the border, bisecting the town right along its main street. Caught by surprise, Lloydminster residents petitioned for the new border to be revised so as to encompass the entire town within Saskatchewan, without success.

For the next quarter century, Lloydminster remained to be administered as two separate towns with two separate municipal administrations. Finally, in 1930, the provincial governments agreed to amalgamate the towns into a single town under shared jurisdiction. The provinces, again jointly, reincorporated Lloydminster as a city in 1958.

Commemorating Lloydminster's distinctive bi-provincial status, a monument consisting of four 100-foot survey markers was erected in 1994 near the city's downtown core.

Although the majority of Lloydminster's population once lived in Saskatchewan, that ratio has long since been reversed; in the 2011 Canadian Census, nearly two-thirds of the city's population lived in Alberta. In 2000, the city hall and municipal offices were moved from Saskatchewan to Alberta in a location right along Meridian Avenue, also known as 50th Avenue, which runs along the Fourth Meridian.

Despite its bi-provincial status, Lloydminster was not exempted from anti-smoking legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. Citizens responded by initiating a referendum against the wishes of the mayor, as permitted in the charter, which resulted in the enactment of a citywide anti-smoking bylaw. The matter became moot when Alberta enacted its own anti-smoking legislation, which was the solution that the mayor and council preferred.

Since Lloydminster's founders were attempting to create a utopian, temperance society, alcohol was not available in Lloydminster for the first few years after its founding.