The town was originally known as Horton's Corner, but was named Kentville in 1826 after Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent (son of King George III and father of Queen Victoria), who resided in Nova Scotia from 1794 to 1800.

[3] Kentville developed a reputation for rowdy drinking and horse races in the early 19th century, earning the nickname "The Devil's Half Acre."

Celebrated local musician, Chase Ross, later released an album entitled "Devil's Half Acre" to critical acclaim in the early years of the new millennium.

[4] The first English speaking settlers - The New England Planters - arrived between 1759 - 1768 and quickly occupied fertile farming lands south of the area that were once settled by the expelled Acadians.

By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the area began to see large numbers of Black Nova Scotian families settle into the Pinewoods area (Now the north end of Kentville and Aldershot) who had been enslaved people of the Planters, descendants of enslaved people or freed black Loyalists from the United States of America.

[8] To learn more about important African Nova Scotians of the Town and surrounding areas follow this link When the Windsor and Annapolis Railway (later named Dominion Atlantic Railway) established its headquarters in Kentville in 1868 and began shipping Annapolis Valley apples to British markets, the community began to thrive.

The railway also attracted large institutional developments such as a regional TB hospital, the Kentville Sanitorium, a federal agricultural research station, and an army training base at Camp Aldershot.

The nearby military training base at Camp Aldershot was significantly downsized and the town's major employer, the Dominion Atlantic Railway suffered serious declines with the collapse of the apple industry and the growth of highway travel.

Further decline followed in the 1970s as the town lost its retail core to the growth of shopping malls and later "big box" stores in nearby New Minas.

Freight service ended in October 1993 and the Kentville rail shops were closed and moved to Windsor, Nova Scotia.

The town is also home to the Annapolis Valley Regional Industrial Park which employs numerous people in the area through a variety of different businesses.

Agriculture, especially fruit crops such as apples, remain a prominent industry in the Kentville area, and throughout the eastern part of the valley.

Kentville shares its northern boundary along the Cornwallis River with Camp Aldershot, a military training base founded in 1904.

Kentville native Donald Ripley wrote a book chronicling Camp Aldershot and its effect on the town entitled On The Home Front.

[16] Today the camp functions as an army reserve training centre and is the headquarters of The West Nova Scotia Regiment.