Preservation

In the 1870s, the Niagara Falls had very limited access to the public and the few visitors it received had to pay to view this natural attraction in most cases. A plan to divide Goat Island into sections for industrial development was about to be set in motion. In the US, the rise of a conservation movement called “Free Niagara” to preserve The Falls and Goat Island was led by Frederic Edwin Church, Frederick Law Olmsted and Henry Hobson Richardson. In 1879, Olmsted and Gardner had been officially assigned to survey The Falls. A document produced as a result was later turned in by the Niagara Preservation movement had the following memorable quote that the efforts to preserve the area was “a sacred obligation to mankind”. In 1883, Governor Grover Cleveland initiated state reservation of The Falls, and this was supported by a private group called The Niagara Falls Association.

Two years later; in 1885, legislation was passed and the Niagara Reservation became the first state park in New York. That same year, Ontario Canada established the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park. Conservationists aimed to design ways to preserve the park despite it being a tourist attraction. Efforts to control erosion were implemented in the 1900s on the American side of The Falls, by restricting water diversion. The area around The Falls have had to endure rapid urbanization throughout the decades in terms of the development of large hotels and tourist amenities, especially on the Canadian side.