Alma, Quebec

From Freepedia

Alma (2001 population: 30,126) is a town located on the southeast coast of Lac Saint-Jean where it flows into the Saguenay River, in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada, approximately 175 km north of Quebec City. Alma is the seat of Lac-Saint-Jean-Est Regional County Municipality.

The present city of Alma was born in 1962 from the merging of four villages: Isle-Maligne, Naudville, Riverbend and St-Joseph d'Alma. The oldest of the villages, St-Joseph d'Alma, was founded in 1867 by Damase Boulanger. The area became an important industrial center during the 1920s and 1930s with the construction of a hydro-electrical dam on the Grande-Décharge River, a paper mill (Price) and an aluminum smelting plant (Alcan), all of which are still in activity today.

In 2002, Alma amalgamated with Delisle, Quebec.