A History of the Victoria Falls

During the Jurassic Period (150-200 million years ago), lava erupted out of fissures in the earth and covered large parts of Southern Africa.  These very dark basalt deposits are up to 300m thick and can be seen as the rock forming the sides of the gorges below Victoria Falls.  As the lava cooled and solidified cracks appeared in the basalt crust in mostly an east-west direction but were joined by smaller north-south fissures. It is surmised that a lake formed over the area and deposits of clay and lime filled the cracks in the basalt.  Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Zambezi River cut through these soft deposits and formed the first series of waterfalls. 

The Zambezi continues to cut its way back through the soft limestone and clay and the progress can be seen by looking at the series of eight gorges formed by the retreating waterfall.  It is guessed that the Devil’s Cataract which is the lowest point of Victoria Falls is the beginning of the next gorge.

The Victoria Falls area is rich in early Stone Age sites: tools found in various places are of the Oldowan industry type, referring to a group of people in the Olduvai Gorge of Tanzania.  These early hominids are classified as Homo habilis and lived in vicinity of the Falls about two and a half million years ago.  Further excavations later traced middle and late Stone Age settlements but it was the Iron Age culture which dominated in the region with the first settlers arriving in the first millennium A.D.  These people – the Bantu – are the ancestors of many of the people living in Victoria Falls today.

In 1855, a Scottish missionary, David Livingstone, is thought to have been the first European to see the Falls.  Although an extremely practical man, Livingstone was so moved by the beauty of the natural spectacle that he enthusiastically uttered “On sights as beautiful as this, angels in their flight must have gazed,” and promptly named them after his Queen.

Livingstone’s ‘discovery’ and visit would bring celebrity to the Falls and ensure a regular supply of hunters traders and missionaries passing through during the latter half of the century, but the 1890s brought an influx of people onto the then Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) with the discovery of coal in Hwange and reports of copper in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).  Suddenly Victoria Falls became - and would remain – an important conduit for business.

The traders’ settlement was on the north bank of the river and was known as the Old Drift.  During its heyday in the 20^th century, plans were proceeding for a railway which would link the Cape with the north of Africa – known optimistically as the Cape to Cairo route.  It was, in fact, never completed, and ended at the Zairean border.

But to continue the Cape to Cairo, the Zambezi had to be tamed by building a bridge across one of the gorges so that visitors could see and hear the Falls and even feel its spray – this being one of Cecil John Rhodes’ ambitions.  The bridge was completed in April 1905 and brought with it the inevitable curio dealers – Percy Clark of Clark’s Curios being the first settler in the area to set up shop.

The influx of visitors meant that better accommodation than the existing railway compartment on the train needed to be built.  Work commenced on a wood and corrugated iron inn – the precursor to today’s Victoria Falls Hotel - close to the railway station but it soon became apparent that improvements to and in the original buildings meant that a luxury hotel with modern amenities of the day would be constructed.

In the 1960s the tourist potential of the Falls was realized and further infrastructural development occurred with shops and services springing up to answer the needs of the community.  Thus the bustling and vibrant Victoria Falls of today was borne and has never looked back!