The town is now divided between Wards 7 and 9 on Greater Sudbury City Council, and is represented by councillors Mike Jakubo and Deb McIntosh.

It was joined in 1908 by the Canadian Pacific Railway, which constructed a new direct line linking Sudbury and Toronto via Romford Junction.

[2]: 45–46 The Mond Nickel Company arrived in Coniston in 1913, relocating its smelter operations from the earlier settlement of Victoria Mines (located west of Sudbury), which swiftly became a ghost town.

[2]: 46  As part of the relocation, Mond purchased five family farms totalling 3,700 acres (1,500 ha), which "brought an end to the agricultural orientation of the community.

Prior to its annexation into Nickel Centre, the town's mayors were Edgar Taylor Austin (1934–46), Roy Snitch (1947–52), Walter Kilimnik (1953–57), William Evershed (1958-59), Maurice Beauchemin (1960–62) and Mike Solski (1963-72).

Solski, the final mayor of Coniston as an independent town, won election to the mayoralty of the amalgamated town of Nickel Centre in 1972. Notable residents of Coniston have included hockey players Neal Martin, Noel Price, Toe Blake, Jim Fox, Leo Lafrance, Andy Barbe and Randy Boyd as well as many other great hockey players.

A visual and radar UFO incident occurred in the community on November 11, 1975, later reported in a press release by NORAD.

The object was tracked on radar from CFS Falconbridge and sighted in binoculars, and estimated to be a 100-ft. diameter sphere with craters.

In that year this firm constructed a narrow gauge logging railway from Wahnapitae, establishing its main operations at Headquarters Lake, near the Garson townsite.

Skead is located approximately 25 kilometres northeast of downtown Sudbury, and situated on south shore of Lake Wanapitei.

During early stages of the town's development, the river was used by multiple companies to send harvest logs to Southern Ontario for processing.

After mining became more viable in the Sudbury District, logging operations in Wahnapitae were stopped, leaving the town as a residential community.

After pressure was put on the Ontario government to do something about the poisoning via pollution, they began the process of abandoning Happy Valley in cooperation with the Regional Municipality of Sudbury and Falconbridge.

Highway 17's freeway segment in the Walden area is slated to be expanded through Nickel Centre toward Markstay, along the existing Southwest and Southeast Bypass route and thence on a new alignment past Coniston and Wahnapitae.