History
For 4,000 years the Songhees people inhabited the lands between Sooke and the Saanich Peninsula, which includes Gordon Head.
In 1852, with the signing of the Douglas Treaties, farmers began settling the hitherto densely forested Gordon Head area. By 1860, 13 men, including Michael Finnerty and John Work, owned all of the land. The region would become famous for its strawberries and later its daffodils. City water service was introduced in 1921, leading to a proliferation of greenhouses and vegetable farming. Agriculture dominated the landscape until about the 1950s, when Gordon Head began gradually developing into a residential neighbourhood.
Today, many homes located near the university have undergone a conversion from single-family to shared rental occupancy in order to meet the demands of the local student population.
Read more about this topic: Gordon Head
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
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“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)