Inverness is rural community in Inverness County, Nova Scotia.
Located on the west coast of Cape Breton Island fronting the Gulf of
St. Lawrence, Inverness sits astride a small coal seam which was
exploited from the late 19th century to the mid-late 20th century,
beginning with a mine opened by Sir William MacKenzie and Sir Donald
Mann during the 1890s after they achieved control of the Inverness
and Richmond Railway.
Several more mines opened in and near
Inverness during the early 20th century, but many closed following
World War II with the last one closing in the early 1990s following
a fire.
The community was established in 1904. It experienced economic
hardship since large scale industrial coal mining ended; the local
economy is now based mainly on fishing and tourism.