Hardisty, Alberta is a town in Flagstaff County in Alberta, Canada. It is located in east-central Alberta, 111 kilometres (69 mi) from the Saskatchewan border, near the crossroads of Highway 13 and Highway 881, in the Battle River Valley.

The Town of Hardisty was named after Senator Richard Hardisty. It began in 1906 as a hamlet, and officially became a town in 1911.

The first people we know of to live in the Battle River Valley were the native First Nations. This country was the wintering grounds for thousands of buffalo, moose, elk and deer, which attracted these people to the area.

The Town of Hardisty owes its existence to the Canadian Pacific Railway. About 1904 the surveyors began to survey the railroad from the east and decided to locate a divisional point at Hardisty because of the good water supply from the river.

Although this was a trading centre as early as 1904, it became a boom town by 1906, spawned by the influx of workers who were building the CPR. By the fall of 1906 the rail line reached Hardisty from Daysland. Then began the task of building the bridge, a task which took about three years.