rush can be seen in the abandoned mine entrances located along the park's hiking trails. History Based on information in records in the City of Victoria Archives (solicitor's files), Goldstream Park was created due to the foresight of Victoria's Mayor and City Council of 1925. Goldstream Park comprises Sections 6 and 7, Goldstream District, includes the salt marsh and the lower reaches of the Goldstream River, and protects some of the largest Western Red Cedars (Thuja plicata) in British Columbia. Lot 6 originally belonged to Langford's earliest settler, James Phair. He operated the original Goldstream Hotel, now a pub in competition with Six Mile for "oldest pub in BC". In 1908 he sold section 6 to the Esquimalt Water Works Company, a private firm supplying water to the City of Victoria. Section 7, the upstream half of the Park, was originally a Crown Grant to the National Electric Tramway and Lighting Company Ltd. (319 acres for $319) and was acquired from them by the Esquimalt Water Works Company. Financed by a mortgage held by the Dunsmuir Estate of Hatley Castle fame, they acquired the entire Goldstream watershed in order to have a monopoly on the water rights. This was intended to protect them from other corporations' applying for water rights, particularly the City of Victoria under 1873 legislation covering its water supply. In order to retire the mortgage, the Company sold some of the watershed's timber to the Continental Timber Company (Fairservice Guerin) in 1925, for about $150,000. Within the same year, however, the Esquimalt Water Works Company Winding up Act had been passed by the city, expropriating the land and water works. Victoria re-negotiated the logging contract in order to remove the Goldstream Park area from that destined for logging. In 1926, the Goldstream Gardens Company submitted a proposal under which they would lease Sections 6 & 7 for 49 years and develop it as a commercial park. It was to have included "motor camp" accommodations, tea rooms, miniature golf course, Swiss Village, riding stables and equipment, gas stations, flower gardens, and fernery. The proposal was thankfully not approved, although a confectionary and a tearoom operated in the Park at different times in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1946, Council granted permission to the Rod and Gun Club for the construction of a Clubhouse which today is used as the Nature House. The City approached the Provincial Government to