Sitting on the east banks of the Pembina River roughly 95 kilometres west of Edmonton, Entwistle occupies a notable position along the Yellowhead Highway, where it meets the junction of Highway 22 and Highway 16A. The hamlet falls within Parkland County‘s Division 6, and sits at approximately the halfway point between Edmonton and Edson. It is part of the federal riding of Yellowhead and the provincial electoral district of Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland.
The community traces its origins to 1907, when James Entwistle, a Canadian Northern Railway employee, staked a claim on land near the Pembina River and the surveyed line for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Knowing that railway construction would pause at the river while a bridge was built, he anticipated a boomtown would develop. In 1908, he constructed a general store on the property, leaving it in the care of his wife and children while he worked elsewhere. As the boomtown grew, it needed a name for a post office. Several proposals, including “Pembina,” “Burke,” and “Harmer,” were each rejected by the federal government due to duplication. It was James Entwistle’s wife, Mary, who ultimately submitted the name “Entwistle,” and it was accepted. James himself was reportedly embarrassed by the idea and often joked that it was Mary, not him, who put his name on the map. The community was officially incorporated as a village on March 26, 1909, and James Entwistle was elected its first mayor the following month. The railway trestle over the Pembina River was finished in 1910, and the Canadian Northern Railway added its own bridge between 1910 and 1912. As railway construction pushed westward in 1912, many residents chose to stay, and Entwistle developed a local economy based on agriculture, timber, and coal from nearby Evansburg. The village was dissolved on February 16, 1942, becoming a hamlet in the Municipal District of Pembina, before being reincorporated as a village on January 1, 1955, though it later returned to hamlet status within Parkland County. Today, Entwistle serves as a staging area for the oil and gas industry, hosts an annual rodeo, offers access to the Pembina River Provincial Park, and carries the distinctive title of the Diamond Capital of Canada.