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When did Queen Elizabeth come to Niagara Falls?

Then just 25-years-old, she wouldn't become Queen Elizabeth II until her father, King George VI, died in February 1952. However, she was standing in for him on the tour as he had become too ill to travel by the time she landed in Niagara Falls on October 14, 1951.



Queen Elizabeth II famously visited Niagara Falls on October 14, 1951, but technically, she was still Princess Elizabeth at the time, as her coronation would not take place until 1953. During this visit, she and Prince Philip stayed at the Sheraton Brock Hotel (now the Crowne Plaza Niagara Falls-Fallsview) and viewed the Horseshoe Falls from the "Table Rock" observation area. Interestingly, although she came very close to the Falls during her later Canadian tours as Queen (visiting Hamilton in 1959 and Niagara-on-the-Lake in 1973), she never reportedly returned to the actual Falls as the reigning monarch. Her 1951 visit remains a landmark historical event for the region, marked by her viewing the Falls while wearing a heavy coat in the autumn mist—a moment captured in iconic photographs that are still displayed in hotels and museums across Niagara Falls, Canada today.

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During a reign that's lasted more than 63 years, she's been to Canada multiple times but visited Niagara only once as Queen. She previously visited the region on Oct. 15, 1951, as a princess, less than four months before her father King George VI died.

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