Map - Bridgewater, Nova Scotia (Bridgewater)

Bridgewater is a town in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, Canada, at the navigable limit of the LaHave River. With a 2021 population of 8,790, Bridgewater is the largest town in the South Shore region.

Priding itself as "The Main Street of the South Shore," Bridgewater has long been established as the primary commercial and professional service centre in the southern half of the province. The community boasts a diverse local economy, as well as larger national and international employers.

In 1604 French explorer Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons visited the area, and in the mid-1600s there was a small French settlement downriver of the current site at LaHave. The first bridge was built around 1825, and by 1850 the village had a population of 300. Lots were first surveyed in 1874.

Around this time industries were developed using water power from the river, including lumber manufacture, a carding mill, a foundry, a gristmill and a tannery.

From 1889 the town was connected by rail to Middleton, and eventually to the rest of the province and Canada via mergers with the Halifax and Southwestern Railway. Passenger service ended in 1976. The railway station, a local landmark, was burned in 1986 and is now the site of fast food outlets. Freight service ended in the early 1990s. In January 1899 a fire devastated the downtown core. One month later, the town was incorporated.

A lumber mill started by Edward Doran Davison on the site of the present-day South Shore Shopping Centre was in operation during the first two decades of the 1900s.

A major employer in the 1900s was the Acadia Gas Engines company, the largest marine inboard motor manufacturer in Canada. Their two-stroke engines, manufactured entirely in Bridgewater and nicknamed make and break engines, were exported worldwide. Employing over 100 at the King Street plant, the company declined and closed in the 1970s.

In 1971 Michelin opened a tire factory, eventually employing more than 1,000.

The western bank of the LaHave River was the area first settled, and continued to be the commercial and civic heart of the town well into the 20th century. However, since the 1970s, population and economic growth has been stronger on the eastern bank, with the development of shopping malls, new housing, and a regional hospital.