page_title: Queen Victoria Park
section_title: 1888 to 1945
hierarchical_section_title: Queen Victoria Park / History / 1888 to 1945
caption_attribution_description: English: King George VI statue, Niagara Falls, ON.
context_page_description: Queen Victoria Park is the main parkland located in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada opposite the American and Canadian Horseshoe Falls. Established by the Niagara Falls 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.
context_section_description: Admittance to the new park was free, a charge was only levied if visitors requested tour guides to accompany them.  By 1890, however, it was found that incoming revenue was 90% below what the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park Commission was budgeting for.  Not wanting to ask the Provincial Government for bonds, the Commission granted a licence to the Niagara Falls and Park River Railway to run a rail route from Chippawa to Queenston.  The line was in service by 1893 and was run by electricity; its power plant constructed south of the Horseshoe Falls being the first hydroelectric power plant erected on the Canadian side.  Nearly half a million passengers rode the railway in 1894, which brought more of them to the new park and provided the Commission with a surplus by 1895.  The Commission then took over the Behind The Sheet attraction at Table Rock (the forerunner to the Journey Behind the Falls attraction), and began making aesthetic improvements to the park over the next several years.  The Commission opened its first greenhouse in 1896 as part of an effort to beautify the park; it had been virtually barren of mature trees when first established.  Thomas Barnett's museum was demolished in 1903 and the present-day Victoria Park Restaurant, known then as the Refectory, was opened in 1904.  The Commission granted franchises to three more hydroelectric power plants to raise additional revenue between 1904 and 1918: the Electrical Development Company of Toronto, the Ontario Powerhouse, and the Rankine power station.
  A refectory (1926) and administration building (1927) were built by Findlay and Foulis, who built Table Rock House (now part of Table Rock Welcome Centre) in 1925-1926 and Hotel General Brock in 1927-1929.
  The original Clifton Hotel north of the park was lost to fire in 1898.  Its replacement likewise was destroyed by fire in December, 1932.  Harry Oakes, a mining millionaire who had already established roots in Niagara Falls, bought the property and presented it to the Niagara Parks Commission (the name shortened from 1921).  Oakes Garden Theatre was built on the site and opened in September, 1937, as part of a plan to beautify the entrance into Canada at the Upper Steel Arch Bridge.  Four months later, the bridge was toppled by a severe ice jam in January 1938, and the present-day Rainbow Bridge was built further downriver, opening in 1941.  The Arch Bridge area would eventually become the Rainbow Gardens.
  The Queenston/Chippawa Railway abandoned its lease in 1932, presenting the Commission with further financial peril.  Compensation to the railway went to arbitration and lasted nearly five years, ending with a million-dollar compensation order paid for by the Commission.  This judgment, along with the approach of World War II, restricted the Commission's ability to make improvements to the Park until the late 1940s.
caption: King George VI statue is centrally located in the park.
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