The local school, MacDonald High sank slightly into one of these mine workings and subsequently had to be torn down.

In the eighteenth century, Dominion was part of a larger area called L’Indienne (Anglicized to "Lingan").

[5] During the New England and British occupation of Louisbourg in the late 1740s, Baie de L’Indienne (Indian Bay) harboured small boats called shallops which carried coal from the mine at Table Head (part of modern-day Glace Bay) to waiting coal vessels to supply the garrison at Louisbourg.

[6] In May 1748, 120 French and Indians surprised and took the schooner Glover, sloop Ellinwood, seven shallops that were employed in loading coal vessels, and "seven soldiers that happened to be there upon Some Business of their own & without arms.

It began as a drift mine in the cliff below the present St. Eugene's Parish Cemetery in Dominion and two shafts were sunk at quarter-mile intervals in a southerly direction, the second being what became the Old Bridgeport Mine on Upper Mitchell Avenue in Dominion, which was abandoned in 1842.

It was not until 1940 that the post office was finally named ‘Dominion.’[17] Due to an Italian-Canadian presence, there is an Italian Community Hall.