Stephenville Crossing

Stephenville Crossing (2021 population: 1,634) is a town in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is on the island of Newfoundland at the easternmost limit of Bay St. George.

The settlement derives its name from the Newfoundland Railway, which ran through the community on its way from Port aux Basques to Corner Brook.

The Hanson Memorial Highway was constructed by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) to link the railway line at Stephenville Crossing with Harmon Field, which was under construction on the other side of a hill to the north, in Stephenville. Later, the USAAF built its railway line from Stephenville Crossing to Stephenville.

Since the air base was constructed, Stephenville Crossing has functioned more or less as a suburb of Stephenville but there is an almost fifteen-minute car drive between both towns.

The 1988 abandonment of the railway in Newfoundland by CN resulted in the last train running through Stephenville Crossing to St. George's (return) on June 6, 1990.

In February 2024, the "Gut Bridge", a trestle bridge built in 1942 to accommodate trains (until 1989) was torn down due to safety concerns with the bridge's structure. In 2006, the entire bridge was closed for public use. The gut bridge replaced an original bridge built in the late 19th century.

Stephenville Crossing is on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland within Division No. 4. It is part of an area referred to as Bay St. George.

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Stephenville Crossing had a population of 1,634 living in 751 of its 826 total private dwellings, a change of -4.9% from its 2016 population of 1,719. With a land area of 31.07 km² (12.00 sq mi), it had a population density of 52.6/km² (136.2/sq mi) in 2021.