The town is where the first experimental rules for the sport of ringette were created in 1963 by Mirl Arthur "Red" McCarthy using a group of local high school girls.

On January 21, 1910, a Canadian Pacific Railway passenger train derailed off a trestle 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) east of Espanola.

[3] Changing economic conditions brought on by the Great Depression forced the closure of the Spanish River facility in 1929.

During the final years of the Hepburn government, it sought to stimulate employment in Northern Ontario in order to stabilize its political position.

[12] Espanola got some negative press in the early 1980s when the mill accidentally discharged toxic effluent into the Spanish River, killing fish by the thousands.

The spill acted like a flush, and when the fish came back a few years later, they were reportedly untainted and thriving, although the toxic smell still remained.

Now the mill is said to be one of the most stringent "zero-emissions" pulp bleaching processes in the world [citation needed], and the area below the Spanish River Dam is a designated fish sanctuary.

The 1969 CBC Television series Adventures in Rainbow Country was filmed near Espanola, near the small First Nations community of Birch Island and at Whitefish Falls.

The series starred Lois Maxwell, the actress who played "Miss Moneypenny" in Bond films such as Dr. No and Goldfinger.

It also connects Espanola with communities to the south along the way to Manitoulin Island, reaching its land terminus at South Baymouth before continuing on the other side of Lake Huron starting at Tobermory and passing through a number of Southern Ontario communities before reaching its ultimate southern terminus of Port Dover.

It marked the first major stop after the AER line turned south toward Manitoulin Island and its ultimate terminus at Little Current.

After the financially troubled AER was acquired by the CPR, the portion of the line continuing south from the junction at McKerrow was maintained as the CPR Little Current Subdivision and saw regular passenger traffic, especially due to the difficulties in crossing the Spanish River before a modern highway bridge was constructed in the 1960s.

[21] The approximately 50-year-old water tower was demolished in 1960 as a part of the CPR's final switch from steam to diesel trains.

The town is where the first experimental rules for the Canadian sport of Ringette were drafted in 1963 at the Espanola Arena by Mirl Arthur "Red" McCarthy using a group of local high school girls who had played ice hockey during gym classes at the Espanola High School.

The first was the Espanola Screaming Eagles which were founded in 1962 in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey Association and won the league title the same year.

Former television stations which operated in the Espanola and area prior to the analog shutdown in 2012 which can only be received via cable or satellite: One of the last operating analog television signals which can reach the Espanola area is CICI-TV (CTV) channel 5 out of Sudbury.