WAPlanned settlement
Victoria Park
Houses strung along the road to Albany, then a municipality of its own.
1887Residential subdivision begins
WHAT STARTED IT
The road from Perth to Albany, the colony’s mail route, ran south-east through this ground, and settlement grew as a ribbon along it. Residential lots were first subdivided in 1887, and the Victoria Park Estate of the 1890s gave the area its name.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
The railway and the gold-rush population boom brought rapid building, and Victoria Park became a municipality in 1897. Two years later it laid the foundation stone of a town hall on Albany Road, and trams later reinforced the shops along the highway.
TURNING POINTS
1887The first residential lots are subdivided.
1893The railway south from Perth opens through the district, encouraging a building boom.
1897Victoria Park is gazetted as a municipality.
1898Victoria Park railway station is built.
1899The foundation stone of the town hall is laid at Albany Road and Kingston Road.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
An inner south-eastern suburb of about 9,300 people. Albany Highway is still its main shopping street.