Sitting at the crossroads of Highway 16 (the Yellowhead Highway) and Highway 41 (the Buffalo Trail) in central Alberta, Vermilion lies roughly 60 kilometres west of Lloydminster and about 192 kilometres east of Edmonton. The town is surrounded by the County of Vermilion River, and its name traces back to the distinctive red clay found in the nearby river valley – the same clay that fuelled one of the community’s earliest industries, a brick factory that operated from 1906 until 1914. Some of the buildings constructed from those locally made bricks still stand in town today.
Settlers began arriving in the area in earnest around 1902, and Vermilion was incorporated as a village in early 1906 before becoming a town later that same year. The arrival of the Canadian Northern Railway in 1905 was a turning point, and Vermilion served as a divisional point complete with a roundhouse, water tower, turntable, and bunkhouse for engine crews. A serious fire on April 10, 1918 destroyed 28 stores and business blocks, but the community rebuilt. Two downtown businesses – Craig’s department store and Long’s drugstore – have operated continuously from the same locations since 1905, predating even the town’s incorporation. Vermilion is also home to Lakeland College, which traces its roots to the Vermilion School of Agriculture, the first provincial agricultural college to open its doors when it welcomed students on November 17, 1913. The Vermilion Standard, a newspaper founded in 1909, continues to publish to this day. According to the 2021 Census of Population, Vermilion had a population of 3,948 residents living in 1,678 of its 1,976 private dwellings, reflecting a modest decline of 3.3 per cent from the previous census.