During the Victorian and Edwardian eras, Mt Cook became a favoured suburb of Wellington's elite, and many palatial mansions, such as the timber houses known as painted ladies, were constructed along the Kent and Edward Terrace rivers; After the Earthquake of 1855, many were built around what was now the Basin Reserve. Densely populated mid-to-postwar Wellington had all eyes on Mount Cook, where the Dominion Museum and the Carilion opened for the country's 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi, in 1940. Over the span of its history, Mount Cook has become known for its culture of bohemianism and preservation of uniquely Wellingtonian Victorian Architecture. Mount Cook's attractions and institutions include the Colonial Cottage Museum, the Wellington campus of Massey University and the National War Memorial, and, to cricketers locally and around the world, the Basin Reserve.