LaPlanche Street

As the major throughway between two rival colonies, British Nova Scotia and Acadia, early LaPlanche was guarded by two forts.

Two decades later, Jonathan Eddy tried to bring the American Revolutionary War to Nova Scotia with Battle of Fort Cumberland.

The LaPlanche industrial park manufactured railway passenger and freight cars, boilers, engines, automobile parts and generator plants and was home to the Rhodes Curry Company, the Canadian Car and Foundry Co., Robb Engineering Co., Malleable Iron Co., McLean Milling Co., Oxford Worsted Co., Hewson Woolen Mills, Eastern Pants Co., M. Shane & Co., News Publishing Co., and E. Biden & Sons.

As the major throughway between mainland Canada and Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, LaPlanche hosted many tourist-oriented businesses.

Nova Scotia built its Tourist Welcome Centre on LaPlanche Street in Fort Lawrence, placing it between the east and west-bound lanes.

Services inevitably became concentrated at the Aulac exit, where the PEI route branches, and LaPlanche Street's economy began to fade.

The Sackville segment (Bridge Street) remains vital, while Aulac and Amherst's host numerous dilapidated shops, plants and motels, and serve the fringe economy and culture of the two communities, masking the centuries of history for which it was stage.

LaPlanche Street traverses the low-lying, southern edge of the Chignecto Isthmus, which connects Nova Scotia with New Brunswick and thus mainland Canada.