From 65438 to 0878, 25-year-old English missionary Gan Lin came to China to preach in Tianjin and Tangshan. Later, attracted by the scenery of Beidaihe, I bought a piece of land here and built a villa. So far, it can be regarded as the opening of Beidaihe's unique holiday and leisure culture in the late Qing Dynasty. Ganlin Villa is one of the earliest western villas in Beidaihe.
After the villa was completed, he invited some relatives and friends to the "greenhouse". At that time, an English lady got off at Beidaihe Station and rode a donkey to the foot of Lianfeng Mountain. Because of the hot weather, she rested on the donkey's back for a while. She is wearing a white hat, with her left hand controlling the reins and her right hand holding an umbrella. She looks charming riding a donkey under the green forest tree. A colleague who is good at painting painted her in watercolor, and this painting was later obtained by Jinda, the British chief engineer of Jingfeng Railway.
Under the vivid propaganda of Jinda, a few years later, seaside villas in Beidaihe sprang up like mushrooms after rain. Foreigners from Britain, France, Russia, the United States and other countries flocked to occupy and snap up land, and Beidaihe became a summer paradise for western colonists. By 1898, Beidaihe was officially designated as a summer resort for Chinese and foreign people by the Qing government at the request of western envoys in Beijing. "It starts from Daihe River in the east, reaches the coast of Jinshanzui, three miles inward, and reaches the opposite of Qinhuangdao in the northeast. It is a summer resort for everyone in the world, and Chinese and foreign countries are allowed to live together." This is the first summer resort in the history of China.
Moreover, since the 1920s, Beidaihe seaside has gradually become a world-famous summer resort, which is rare in the Far East. At that time, Beidaihe's tourism industry had many pioneering moves in China: the first domestic special railway branch line was built, that is, Beidaihe Railway Station to Beidaihe Haibin Station of Tianjin-Yushu Railway1917; It also opened the first domestic tourist route, namely the route from Nanyuan Airport to Beidaihe Seaside Songkashan Airport, which was founded in 192 1. The flight time is about 2 hours.