The junction of St. Mary’s and St. Anne’s Road, in the heart of Old St. Vital, has long been a natural meeting place. St. Mary’s Road was once the famous Crow Wing Trail, an ox cart path that wound its way along the east side of the Red River to Minnesota. The first homes in the St. Vital area began appearing around 1822 when retired fur traders and Métis who took up farming along the Red River, and the community began to take shape in the 1920s and 1930s, when businesses and homes started to multiply in the area. With the waning of the buffalo hunt in the 1850s, the area grew in importance as it developed a thriving market garden economy, with its residents supplying the growing communities of Winnipeg and St. Boniface with fresh fruit and dairy products. The community further developed after 1930, and the area amalgamated with the City of Winnipeg in 1972. The south end of the area is where one finds the Riel House National Historic Site of Canada and, nearby, one of the largest parks in the city, St. Vital Park. Visitors will surely appreciate the area for the variety of its restaurants, services and businesses.