In Search of Niagara Penny White Research Presentation: March 2, 2012 | Kees Lokman, MDesS in Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology Niagara Falls Scale Model for the Niagara Falls Power Company (1928) Archival Research Why Niagara? Emergency vehicle and maintenance crew of the Niagara Falls Power Company posing under the first power transmission line to transmit power over a distance more than a mile. The transmission line was constructed in 1896 and stretched over 26 miles from Niagara Falls to Buffalo. Image was first published accompanying the article "Niagara Falls Power," in Cassier’s Magazine (Cassier Magazine Co., New York ,1902): 179-205. Niagara as an Object Thomas Cole American, 1801-1848 Distant View of Niagara Falls, 1830 Oil on panel 47.9 x 60.6 cm (18 7/8 x 23 7/8 in.) Friends of American Art Collection. American Falls and Horseshoe Falls looking toward the U.S(top), Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada (bottom) Photos by Kees Lokman, 2011 Niagara as a Region Map of the Niagara Region in 1837 Map source: Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society Accompanying the map is this text: Behind those uncultivated and uninhabitable mountains (the Niagara Gorge) you enjoy the sight of a rich country, magnificent forests, beautiful fruitful hills...Situated between two lakes...you breathe the purest air under the milderst and most temparate climate imaginable... –Fr. F.X. Charlevoix, March 1721 Map of the Niagara Region in 2011 Map source: Google Palimpsestuous Ithaca, Sébastien Marot Frederick Law Olmsted Lecture October 12, 2010 Drawing from Harper's Weekly in 1878 illustrating some of the notions aroused by the Niagara Falls. The Indian, patriot, lover, artist, poet, geologist, industrialist, tourist, soldier and sailor, all see the natural wonder through different eyes. "Save Niagara Falls-From This." From Puck, New York: J. Ottmann, 1906. 17 3/4 x 11. Chromolithograph by J. Ottmann Lith. Co.. Niagara Characters Frederic Edwin Church, Frederick Law Olmsted, Nikola Tesla, Robert Moses, painter landscape architect engineer and inventor master builder Lois Marie Gibbs, King Champ Gillette, Adam Beck, Jean Lussier, community activist business man, utopian socialist politician stuntman Niagara Events First Depiction of the Falls by Father Louis Hennepin The Welland Canal First Transmission of Hydro- Plans for the Niagara Reservation 1678 1829, 1854, 1887, 1932 electric Power, 1895 1879-1887 The Niagara Power Project The Day the Falls went Dry Niagara Falls Convention Center The Love Canal 1956-1961 June 1969 1973 1890s, 1953, 1978 In Search of Niagara geography tourism preservation industry technology The Strates of Niagara From Niagara Power: history of the Niagara Falls Power Company, 1886-1918, by Edward Dean Adams,Niagara Falls Power Company, 1927 The Welland Canal Monument of William Hamilton Merritt 1840 Plan of the Niagara Frontier Shewing the General Line of the Welland Canal 4 1/2" x 7 1/8" B&W photograph, December, 1969. The sketch shows the area from the Welland Canal to the Niagara River. It depicts relief, cleared Source: Niagara Falls Public Library and wooded areas, roads (including some comments on their state), the locks on the canal, town- ships, buildings (i.e. taverns, mills, hotels, schools, etc.), and homes (with some settlers identified). Map source: Library and Archives Canada, NMC 21590. Construction of the Thorold Tunnel Construction and Expansion of Locks along the Welland Canal 6.75" x 7.75" B&W Photograph 9.5" x 7.5" B&W photograph H. G. Acres & Company Limited, Niagara Falls, Ont. ( Photo File # 1195 - C - 70 ) Source: Public Archives of Canada Source: Courtesy of H. G. Acres & Company Limited Olmsted and the Picturesque “Having regard to the enjoyment of visitors of natural scenery, and con- sidering that the means of making this enjoyment available to large num- bers of them will unavoidably lessen the extent and value of the primary elements of natural scenery, nothing of an artificial character should be allowed a place on the property, no matter how valuable it might be under other circumstances and no matter of how little cost it may be had the presence of which can be avoided consistently with the provision of nec- essary conditions for making the enjoyment of natural scenery available.” - Frederick Law Olmsted, General Plan for the improvements of the Niagara Reservation (1887). “In an evil hour it entered into some man’s mind to start a paper’ mill there—small at first, but extending year by year, till in place of graceful woods, the ground is covered with unsightly sheds and buildings, and the rapids above are disfigured with wing-dams and ice barriers ; the whole group forming a shocking contrast to the natural scenery.” - Frederick Law Olmsted, New York State Survey, Special report of New York State survey on the preservation of the scenery of Niagara Falls : and fourth annual report on the triangulation of the state. For the year 1879 / James T. Gardner, director, Albany : Charles Van Benthuysen & sons, 1880. Study for System of Walks and Drives on Goat Island. Sketch, c. 1886: Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Albertype Company. Approach to New Goat Island Bridge from the Mainland, c. 1910. Photograph. Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, Buffalo, N.Y. Removal of Wall on the Mainland, c. 1890. Albumen print. Local History Department, Niagara Falls Public Library, Niagara Falls, N.Y. The view shows T. V. Welch supervising workmen removing a stone wall on the mainland and form- ing a more naturally sloping bank in its place. “The real question is, how, in the long run, is the general experience of visitors affected by measures and courses which are determined with no regard to the influence of the scenery?” - Frederick Law Olmsted, New York State Survey, Special report of New York State survey on the preservation of the scenery of Niagara Falls: and fourth annual report on the triangulation of the state. For the year 1879 Birds Eye View of Goat Island Group, 1898-99. Photograph. Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, Buffalo, N.Y. The view shows paths and plantings on the mainland and Goat Island shortly after the removal of buildings on the reservation. An apparently shoreless sea tumbling toward one is a very grand and a very awful sight. Forgetting, then, what one knows, and giving oneself to what one only sees, I do not know- that there is anything in nature more majestic than the view of the rapids above the falls of Niagara.” - Frederick Law Olmsted, New York State Survey, Special report of New York State survey on the preservation of the scenery of Niagara Falls: and fourth annual report on the triangulation of the state. For the year 1879 Clifford Calverley on the Rope, 1893. Signoria Maria Spelterina Crossing the Niagara River A stereoscopic view by an unknown photographer with Her Feet in Baskets, 1876. Source: Niagara Falls New York Public Library A stereoscopic view by Charles Bierstadt. Source: Niagara Falls New York Public Library “I was disappointed in Niagara - most people must be disappointed in Niagara. Every American bride is taken there, and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.” - Oscar Wilde Honeymoon Bridge Collapse 1938 The Honeymoon Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada was one of the world's largest arch-bridge spans. But its life ended abruptly in the winter of 1938, when a rush of water clogged with ice flooded the Niagara River, severely damaging the bridge's supports and causing it to plummet into the gorge. (Sensing collapse was imminent, officials had closed the bridge, so there were no casualties.) The bridge's successor, optimistically named the Rainbow Bridge, features elevated supports that keep the span's lowest point a full 50 feet above the water level, 28 feet higher than the Honeymoon's lowest part. Technological Sublime "We have many monuments of past ages; we have the palaces and pyramids, the temples of the Greek and the cathedrals of Christendom. In them is exemplified the power of men, the greatness of nations, the love of art and religious devotion. But the monument at Niagara has something of its own, more in accord with our present thoughts and tendencies. It is a monument worthy of our scientific age, a true monu- ment of enlightenment and of peace. It signifies the subjugation of natural forces to the service of man, the discontinuance of barbarous methods, the relieving of millions from want and suffering" -Nikola Tesla on January 12, 1897: Opening Ceremony at the Hydroelectric Power Station. “One pictures the long lines of copper and aluminum cables stretching across coun- try, through village and city, hanging motionless, with nothing visible to tell the story of the task they are performing; but they transmit and amount of electric current to Buffalo and the Expansion, which, it has been calculated, an army of 600,000 men performing the hardest kind of physical labor, could not do if they could keep steadi- ly at work. If every able-bodied man in greater New York were working together turning a crank, they would not equal the power to be developed in the two stations of the Niagara Falls Power Company; and they could only work eight hours a day, while the great current flows forever.” Orrin E. Dunlap, The Wonderful Story of the Chaining of Niagara, 1901 Collaps of the Schoellkopf Power Plant (1895-1956) All images courtesy of the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Erosion of the Niagara Falls (January 1931) All images courtesy of the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Crestline Recession of Horseshoe Falls (1764-1924) All images courtesy of the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society Love Canal: 1927 Love Canal: 1951 Love Canal: 1958 Love Canal: 2010 View of the Love Canal ca.