Queen Victoria Park
Queen Victoria Park is the main parkland located in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada opposite the American and Canadian Horseshoe Falls. Established by a Provincial Park Act in 1885 and opened in 1888, the park is operated by the Niagara Parks Commission and is considered the centerpiece of the Niagara Falls recreational tourist area.
The park is known for its outstanding flower displays of daffodils and roses in-season, with many of the plantings done in a carpet-bedding design. Queen Victoria Park is also the focal point for the annual winter Festival of Lights.
The area comprising Queen Victoria Park was originally part of the upper Niagara River bed. Father Louis Hennepin is purported to be the first visitor to explore the area in depth in 1678. Active settlements in the area did not begin until the dawn of the 19th century with the establishment of a small hut which served as an inn. William Forsyth, a Buffalo immigrant, settled in the area in 1818 and by 1822, had established the first stairway down to the lower Niagara River below the falls, in addition to the first substantial building in the area, the Pavilion Hotel. By the late 1820s, the parcel was sold to Thomas Clark and Samuel Street, who began the construction of several buildings near the area now called Table Rock on the south end of the future park property. They were joined in competition by Thomas Barnett who, in 1827, built a museum just south of Table Rock, on the present site of the Table Rock Center. The north end of the property, now occupied by Oakes Garden Theater, housed the Clifton House, built in 1833 and catering to the well-to-do traveller.
Samuel Zimmerman, who built his fortune on helping construct the second Welland Canal and the Great Western Railway, then appropriated 52 acres (210,000 m2) of land opposite the American Falls with plans to design an elaborate estate. The estate did not come to pass; upon Zimmerman's tragic death in 1856, only two gatehouses and a fountain had been built.
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