May 1st, 2013 George Bailey
Queen Victoria Park celebrates its 125th Birthday
It was on May 24, 1888 that The Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park (later named The Niagara Parks Commission) was formed. However, Queen Victoria Park near the falls was opened to the public without an official ceremony.
Niagara Falls citizens were so enraged that there was no official ceremony they held there own official ceremony a month later on June 21st.This original park consisted of 62 hectares (154 acres) from the foot of Clifton Hill to Dufferin Islands. This was the area known then and still today as Queen Victoria Park.
Stay tuned for lots of springtime events taking place here that I will be blogging about in the next number of weeks.
Today’s Niagara Parks extends along the Canadian side of the border from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario a total of 1,325 hectares (3,274 acres).
It was on March 30th, 1885 that the Legislature of Ontario passed, “An Act for preservation of the Natural Scenery about Niagara Falls”. The act, known by its short title “Niagara Falls Park Act” provided for the formation of the park in 1888.
Incidentally, The Niagara Parks Commission (The capitalized “T” in The is officially part of the parks name) is Ontario’s first provincial park and not Algonquin Provincial Park which was founded in 1893.
The folks at Algonquin Provincial Park don’t like to hear this fact.
Attached are a few photos I took this week of the colourful flowers you’ll find in QVP (Queen Victoria Park)