Historic Pretoria West
Marthinus Wessel Pretorius bought two farms, Elandspoort and Koedoespoort in 1853.
The suburb of Pretoria West was established in 1892 and Hermanstad in 1897.
In 1903, the suburbs of Gezina, Wonderboom South, Rietfontein, Parktown, Mountain View and Claremont were established.
Pretoria Gardens, Daspoort, Rietondale and Waterkloof were established in 1904.
On 23 May 1905, Lord Selbourne arrived in Pretoria.
Soon thereafter Lady Selbourne was established.
The suburb was named after Lady Beatrice Maud Selbourne, the wife of Lord Selbourne who served as high commissioner of SA and governor of the Transvaal and Orange River colonies until 1910.
Lady Selbourne was a portion of a farm called Zandfontein.
Later that year, Hatfield and Booysens were established.
In 1939, Atteridgeville was established and named after deputy mayor, Patricia Atteridge.
The first 50 families moved from Marabastad to Atteridgeville in May 1940.
Danville was established in 1942.
On 1 July 1949 the Hercules municipality was merged with Pretoria.
The Ollie Deneyschen Tunnel, usually called the Daspoort Tunnel, was built in 1972 to connect Claremont to Danville. It was constructed after Pretoria City Councillor A.P. Deneyschen noticed that Iscor workers living in Hercules were forced to travel a long distance to work
Construction took 40 months at a cost of R1.7 million and was opened on 10 August 1972 by the mayor of Pretoria.
Source: Rekord East