Miners Memorial Park, a small, quiet parkette in downtown Drumheller, honors the region’s rich coal mining history and the miners who “mined the black” in the local Coal Valley. Unveiled on November 10, 2012 by MP Kevin A. Sorenson, and Mayor Terry Yemen (with Bob Moffatt, representing miners, and Randall Myers, representing families who lost loved ones), it commemorates the opening of Newcastle Mine, the first coal mine in Drumheller, in 1911.   In 2025, a new silhouette entrance sign depicting a miner with a headlamp, created by Fred Makowecki of ImageCrafter Signs, was unveiled at the park.

A project of the Atlas Coal Mine Historical Society, community members and numerous volunteers, supported by the Building Communities Through Art and Heritage Program, Department of Canadian Heritage, the park grounds features historical information boards detailing the area’s past.

The central steel and granite monument, designed by Ontario-based artist James Smith, includes a headframe iron sheave wheel (a large pulley wheel used in mine hoist systems), sourced from the historic Atlas Coal Mine #4 (the last coal mine to close in Coal Valley), that was part of the hoisting system that, in 1979, hauled the last load of Drumheller coal to the surface.

In 1962, using this same hoisting system, two brothers John and Robert “Babe” Myers were killed when their exit elevator malfunctioned and the brakes did not hold. The 12-ton counterweight hurled to the ground, the cage smashed into the hoist structure then plummeted 400 ft. to the bottom of the shaft instantly killing the two brothers.

The base of the monument features a base with a list, laser-etched in black granite, of the names, year of death and the mine locations of the 207 miners killed in Drumheller‘s mines between 1911 and 1980.  Below it is a pair of crossed pickaxes.

Alongside the monument is a mural, depicting the Coal Valley’s mining heritage, done by artist (a graduate of the Alberta College of Art, now a university) and former miner Marcel Deschenes who lived in East Coulee and passed away in November 2018 at the age of 71.  Black-and-white photos of the fallen miners as well as photos depicting life during the mining years are also mounted on wooden fence picket walls.

Miners Memorial Park: 236 Centre St., Drumheller, Alberta T0J 3R0.

How to Get There: The memorial park is located near the Drumheller Municipal Building, as well as near the Drumheller Fire Station.