History

Theories differ as to the origin of the name of the falls. According to Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger, Niagara is derived from the name given to a branch of the local native Neutral Confederacy, who are described as being called the Niagagarega people on several late-17th-century French maps of the area. According to George R. Stewart, it comes from the name of an Iroquois town called Onguiaahra, meaning "point of land cut in two".

Henry Schoolcraft reported:

Niagara Falls. This name is Mohawk. It means, according to Mrs. Kerr, the neck; the term being first applied to the portage or neck of land, between lakes Erie and Ontario. By referring to Mr. Elliott's vocabulary, (chapter xi) it will be seen that the human neck, that is, according to the concrete vocabulary, his neck, is onyara. Red Jacket pronounced the word Niagara to me, in the spring of 1820, as if written O-ne-au-ga-rah.

Many figures have been suggested as first circulating a European eyewitness description of Niagara Falls. The Frenchman Samuel de Champlain visited the area as early as 1604 during his exploration of Canada, and members of his party reported to him the spectacular waterfalls, which he described in his journals. The Finnish-Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm explored the area in the early 18th century and is credited with the first scientific description of the falls. The consensus honoree for the first description is the Belgian missionary Louis Hennepin, who observed and described the falls in 1677, earlier than Kalm, after traveling with the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, thus bringing the falls to the attention of Europeans. Further complicating matters, there is credible evidence the French Jesuit missionary Paul Ragueneau visited the falls some 35 years before Hennepin's visit while working among the Huron First Nation in Canada. Jean de Brébeuf also may have visited the falls, while spending time with the Neutral Nation.

In 1762, Captain Thomas Davies, a British Army officer and artist, surveyed the area and painted the watercolor, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara, the first eyewitness painting of the falls.

During the 19th century, tourism became popular, and by mid-century, it was the area's main industry. Theodosia Burr Alston (daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr) and her husband Joseph Alston were the first recorded couple to honeymoon there in 1801. Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jérôme visited with his bride in the early 19th century.

In 1825, British explorer John Franklin visited the falls while passing through New York en route to Cumberland House as part of his second Arctic expedition, calling them "so justly celebrated as the first in the world for grandeur".

In March 1848, an ice blockage caused the falls to stop; no water (or at best a trickle) fell for as much as 40 hours. Waterwheels stopped, and mills and factories shut down for having no power.

Later that year, demand for passage over the Niagara River led to the building of a footbridge and then Charles Ellet's Niagara Suspension Bridge. This was supplanted by German-born John Augustus Roebling's Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge in 1855. After the American Civil War, the New York Central Railroad publicized Niagara Falls as a focus of pleasure and honeymoon visits. With increased railroad traffic, in 1886, Leffert Buck replaced Roebling's wood and stone bridge with the predominantly steel bridge that still carries trains over the Niagara River today. The first steel archway bridge near the falls was completed in 1897. Known today as the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, it carries passenger vehicles and trains between Canada (through Canadian Customs Border Control) and the U.S.A. just downstream of the falls.

In about 1840, the English industrial chemist Hugh Lee Pattinson traveled to Canada, stopping at the Niagara Falls long enough to make the earliest known photograph of the falls, a daguerreotype in the collection of Newcastle University. It was once believed that the small figure standing silhouetted with a top hat was added by an engraver working from imagination as well as the daguerreotype as his source, but the figure is clearly present in the photograph. Because of the very long exposure required, of ten minutes or more, the figure is assumed by Canada's Niagara Parks agency to be Pattinson himself. The image is left-right inverted and taken from the Canadian side. Pattinson made other photographs of the Horseshoe Falls as well as of Rome and Paris. These were then transferred to engravings to illustrate Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours' Excursions Daguerriennes (Paris, 1841–1864).

On 6 August 1918, an iron scow became stuck on the rocks above the falls. The two men on the scow were rescued but the vessel remained trapped on rocks in the river, and is still visible there in a deteriorate state, although its position shifted by 50 meters during a storm on 31 October 2019. Daredevil William "Red" Hill Sr. was particularly praised for his role in the rescue.

After the First World War, tourism boomed again, as automobiles made getting to the falls much easier. The story of Niagara Falls in the 20th century is largely that of efforts to harness the energy of the falls for hydroelectric power, and to control the development on both sides that threaten the area's natural beauty. In 1941, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission completed the third current crossing in the immediate area of Niagara Falls with the Rainbow Bridge, carrying both pedestrian and vehicular traffic between the two countries and Canadian and U.S. customs for each country.

Before the late 20th century, the northeastern end of the Horseshoe Falls was in the United States, flowing around the Terrapin Rocks, which were once connected to Goat Island by a series of bridges. In 1955, the area between the rocks and Goat Island was filled in, creating Terrapin Point. In the early 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers filled in more land and built diversion dams and retaining walls to force the water away from Terrapin Point. Altogether, 400 ft (120 m) of the Horseshoe Falls were eliminated, including 100 ft (30 m) on the Canadian side. According to author Ginger Strand, the Horseshoe Falls is now entirely in Canada. Other sources say "most of" Horseshoe Falls is in Canada.

History of freezing overedit

The only recorded freeze-up of the river and falls was due to an ice jam on March 29, 1848. In 1912, the American Falls was completely frozen but the other two kept flowing. Although the falls commonly ice up most winters, the river and the falls do not freeze completely. The years 1885, 1902, 1906, 1911, 1932, 1936, 2014, 2017 and 2019 are noted for partial freezing of the falls.

A so-called ice bridge was also common in certain years at the base of the falls and was used by people who wanted to cross the river before bridges had been built. During some winters, the ice sheet was as thick as 40 feet (12m) to 100 feet (30m) but that thickness has not occurred since 1954. The ice bridge of 1841 was said to be at least 100 feet thick. On 12 February 1912, the ice bridge which had formed on 15 January began breaking up while people were still on it. Many escaped but three died during the event, later named the Ice Bridge Disaster or Tragedy.

History of the bridgesedit

A number of bridges have spanned the Niagara River in the general vicinity of the falls. The first, not far from the Whirlpool, was a suspension bridge above the gorge. It opened for use by the public in July 1848 and remained in use until 1855. A second bridge in the Upper Falls area was commissioned, with two levels or decks, one for use by the Great Western Railway. This Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge opened in 1855. In 1882, the Grand Trunk Railway took over control of the second deck after it absorbed the Great Western company. Significant structural improvements were made in the late 1870s and then in 1886; this bridge remained in use until 1897.

Due to the volume of traffic, the decision was made to construct a new arch bridge nearby: under and around the existing bridge. After it opened in September 1897, a decision was made to remove and scrap the Railway Suspension Bridge. This new bridge was initially known as the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge; it had two decks, the lower one used for carriages and the upper for trains. In 1937, it was renamed the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge and remains in use today. All of the structures built up to that time were referred to as Lower Niagara bridges and were some distance from the falls.

The first bridge in the so-called Upper Niagara area (closer to the falls) was a two level suspension structure that opened in January 1869; it was destroyed during a severe storm in January 1889. The replacement was built quickly and opened in May of the same year. In order to handle heavy traffic a second bridge was commissioned, slightly closer to the American Falls. This one was fully made of steel and opened to traffic in June 1897; it was known as the Upper Steel Arch Bridge, but was often called the Honeymoon Bridge. The single level included a track for trolleys and space for carriages and pedestrians. The design led to the bridge being very close to the surface of the river and in January, 1938, an ice jam twisted the steel frame of the bridge which later collapsed, on January 27, 1938.

Another Lower Niagara bridge had been commissioned in 1883 by Cornelius Vanderbilt for use by railways at a location roughly approximately 200 feet south of the Railway Suspension Bridge. This one was of an entirely different design; it was a Cantilever bridge to provide greater strength. The Niagara Cantilever Bridge had two cantilevers which were joined by steel sections; it opened officially in December 1883 and improvements were made over the years for a stronger structure. As rail traffic was increasing, the Michigan Central Railroad company decided to build a new bridge in 1923, to be located between the Lower Steel Arch Bridge and the Cantilever Bridge. The Michigan Central Railway Bridge opened in February 1925 and remained in use until the early 21st century. The Cantilever Bridge was removed and scrapped after the new rail bridge opened. Nonetheless, it was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame in 2006.

There was a lengthy dispute as to which agency should build the replacement for the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge in the Upper Niagara area. When that was resolved, construction of a steel bridge commenced in February 1940. Named the Rainbow Bridge, and featuring two lanes for traffic separated by a barrier, this one opened in November 1941. It remains in use today.