Article

Killarney (Man)

Published Online September 11, 2012

Last Edited March 4, 2015

Killarney, Manitoba, population centre, population 2197 (2011c), 2273 (2006c). Killarney was incorporated as a village in 1903, as a town in 1907 and merged with the Rural Municipality of Turtle Mountain to form the Municipality of Killarney-Turtle Mountain in 2007.

Killarney, Manitoba, population centre, population 2197 (2011c), 2273 (2006c). Killarney was incorporated as a village in 1903, as a town in 1907 and merged with the Rural Municipality of Turtle Mountain to form the Municipality of Killarney-Turtle Mountain in 2007. The community is an agricultural and recreational centre on Killarney (formerly Oak) Lake, 230 km southwest of Winnipeg and 20 km north of the Canada-US border. The area and nearby Turtle Mountain were traversed by Native hunters, fur traders and explorers. Métis settled near Rock and Pelican lakes in the mid-1800s.

Eastern Canadian and British squatters followed in the late 1870s, and then French, Belgian, Dutch, Mennonite and central European homesteaders. A struggling crofter settlement of Scottish labourers and fishermen was established in 1888-89.

Although Killarney was founded in 1880-81, it did not boom until the arrival of the Manitoba Southwestern Colonization Railway (1885). The boom lasted until about 1911. In later years, Killarney became a key service and shipping centre for area farmers. By 1896 cottages had appeared at Killarney Lake, beginning one of several recreational resources in the area.