Sainte-Josephine, Lanaudiere

Sainte-Josephine Township, Lanaudiere
Chenique-governored township
Gerard Avenue, Sainte-Josephine Township
Nickname(s):  Sainte-Josephine The Eastern Coalstain
Country	Chenes
Eastern State	Lanaudiere
Departmente	Marines Departemente

Sainte-Josephine is a Chenique governed town in Marines Departmente, Lanaudiere, East Chenes with a population of 7,659 during the 2020 Chenique census. Sainte-Josephine was founded by Thomas Marine as a trading settlement originally selling refined metals. Sainte-Josephine grew as a tributary settlement of Ville de Amiens who would send miners to live in Sainte-Josephine. Sainte-Josephine sat on one of the largest coal settlements that originally belonged to a unnamed Tsalagi tribe that was unaligned with either the Quannassee or the Androscoggin. By the founding of the settlement, the Tsalagi tribe had vanished, leaving behind a various assortment of tools. During the Androscoggin-Etinne War, Sainte-Josephine was relatively unaffected by the civil war. Near the end of the war, Sainte-Josephine saw an influx of unaligned Tsalagi people that the Chenique government would later take as refugees from the Quannassee.

Sainte-Josephine saw rapid development and expansion as the railroad industry began to expand at the hand of Louis Quevillon and the Amiens Department Railroad, which put their fourth train station at Sainte-Josephine that served both freight and passanger. In 1914, much of the coal had been exhausted and much of the outerlying areas of Sainte-Josephine began to die off. This was preceded by Louis Quevillon's ascension and the formation of the Chenique National Railroad Society which sought to expand its coal resources. The primary mining company, Josephine Mining Company began to fail when mining surveys found that further mining would be unprofitable. The Josephine Mining Company would go out of business and the subsequent fallout saw the population fall from over 30,000 people to less than 10,000 people in 1970.

Much of Sainte-Josephine's historic mining operations have been demolished except for some administrative and transportation buildings. Much of the Sainte-Josephine consists of the original town that was built around the trading settlement. Sainte-Josephine has since been transformed with several infrastructure projects, including the building of a new campus by the University of Lanaudiere State. Sainte-Josephine is serviced by the Commercial Railway Company's Ligne Côte de l'Est and the Service Commercial de la Côte Est for passenger and freight, respectively. Sainte-Josephine is also connected to Interstate Highway 50 (Chenes) via the Interstate Highway 250 Spur. The village has seen renewed interest as a tourist attraction and a hub for transporting goods going to Moxaney.

Geography

Sainte-Josephine is 24 miles west of Ville de Amiens and is considered to be part of the Ville de Amiens metropolitan center. It sits close to the eastern border to the state of Amiens. Sainte-Josephine is the seat of its departmente, the Sainte-Josephine Departemente. According to the Chenique Department of Agriculture and Land, Sainte-Josephine covers an area of 6 miles, all of which is land.