The end always comes—even for the Cooper farm.

Kathy Cooper was a legendary Abbotsford farmer best known, perhaps, for her steadfast refusal to sell her family farm and walk away with tens of millions of dollars.

Cooper spent her entire life on that farm. It lay just northeast of downtown Abbotsford in an area increasingly dedicated to growing subdivisions, rather than hay.

And by the time her father died in 1977 and she took over the land on McMillan Road, developers had been knocking on the door for years. Over time, those offers grew and grew, as the demand for homes increased. The land itself was spotty: soil here, gravel there (and there and there). But it was Cooper’s land and she wouldn’t sell it for a million bucks. Or much, much more.

Cooper was a stubborn farmer who loved her land. But she was more than that too: one of the Abbotsford school district’s first female principals, she was a teacher and educator for four decades.

• Today, Tyler writes about Cooper, who died two years ago, and the new plan to finally develop the land she lived on for more than 90 years.