Niagara Falls: The Not-So-Great Tourist Destination

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Niagara Falls The Not-So-Great Tourist
Destination
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The Spectacles at Niagara Falls
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Burning Spring
Promoters corked a gas vent near the falls For a
fee, tourists could see it lit creating a
burning spring.
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StuntsSam Patch Jumps into the Falls
Beginning in 1829, Sam Patch had jumped into the
falls. Became known as the Yankee
Leaper. Highest jump was 130 feet he survived!
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Stunts Blondin Crosses the Falls on a Tightrope
Tourists would pay a fee to watch Blondin walk
across the top of the falls. His show became
more and more daring
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Blondin Crosses the Falls Pushing a Wheelbarrow
on a Tightrope
Blondin crossing the tightrope with a loaded
wheel barrow. Sometimes wore stilts crossing the
rope. Once pushed a cook stove onto the rope and
made an omelet!
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• Americas Cultural Heritage
• Americans in the late 19th-century feel
  that the United States is somehow inferior to
  Europe. Where the United States doesnt have the
  ruins of Rome or Greece, it doesnt have the
  Acropolis, it doesnt have the Parthenon. And so
  it seems like were an inferior nation. And yet
  the one thing we do have is a nature that looks
  closer to the new morning of Gods own creation,
  closer to Paradise than anything that Europe has
  to offer. And so the thought is that if were to
  preserve anything that stands for the glory of
  America, then these overwhelmingly beautiful,
  sacred spots are the ones we ought to preserve.
• --Historian William Cronon