Niagara Falls Should Still Haunt Us
Why the specter that tormented early preservationists should still be in our nightmares
Shortly after the Valentines Day Massacre of 1,000 NPS rangers and thousands of other public lands workers, many people expressed their deepest fear to me. It came in the form of comments and conversations: I’m afraid they’re going to privatize the national parks.
In recent days, it seems that those fears are beginning to develop into solid plans. Last week, Jonathan Thompson over at The Land Desk wrote about the new and improved plan for “Freedom Cities” to be carved out of “empty” western landscapes. The Center for Biodiversity addressed the implications of this plan with an interactive map of the areas proposed for development (and you ought to check out Wes Siler’s analysis of it).
All of this was precluded by the weird announcement via a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the Interior Department and Housing and Urban Development were joining forces to make public lands “home sweet home.”
In many ways—more than mining or clear-cutting—the sell-off of public landscapes to private real estate is the greatest threat imaginable. Though destructive and costly, forests can be restored and pollution can be cleaned up. But once an acre is sold, it is sold—and the buyer gains total control of what happens within its boundaries.
This was a lesson that was learned by the early American preservation movement. One of the most stunning natural wonders in the east—Niagara Falls—was lost before it could be saved. Private interests devoured the landscape, digesting it for personal profit long before it could be set aside. The consumption of Niagara Falls haunted the founders of American preservation—and it should still haunt us.
Negligence at Niagara
Niagara Falls is the original iconic landscape of the North American continent. Millions of Americans and Europeans came to view the dramatic torrent of water dropping off the Niagara Escarpment. Early visitors included the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville. Reflecting on his experience in 1831, he wrote to his mother that she should “hasten to see this place in its grandeur. If you delay, your Niagara will have been spoiled for you.”1
To Alexis de Tocqueville, it was obvious what was about to occur at the Falls. Efforts to connect the new nation via canals had increased commercial interest and tourism on the Niagara River. Already, efficient transportation was delivering visitors to its banks—and industry was sure to follow. “I don’t give the Americans ten years to establish a saw or flour mill at the base of the Cataract,” de Tocqueville speculated.
Alexis de Tocqueville proved to be a prophet in this regard; within a few centuries, the banks of the Falls on both sides were choked by industry and transformed into a tourist hellscape. Humanity’s worst tendencies—the inclination to brutally bend the environment to our will in order to make a buck—were on full display. One’s ability to take in the sights and sounds of the Falls was utterly degraded by smokestacks and scams. In 1879, Frederick Law Olmsted wrote “There is no American soil from which the Falls can be contemplated except at the pleasure of a private owner and under such conditions as he may choose to impose.”2
Niagara Falls was the first of America’s iconic landscapes to be killed by humanity’s greed and lack of foresight. It was resurrected as a specter that haunted preservationists like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Its message was plain— Don’t let this happen again!
Niagara Falls in the Foundation Myth
This dark oracle was a motivating factor to protect many of the landscapes that formed the foundation of the National Park System. According to Nathaniel Pitt Langford, an early explorer and advocate of Yellowstone, the threat of private ownership of the geysers and hot springs kickstarted the movement for the first national park.
He recounts a fireside conversation amongst members of the Washburn expedition, held on the final day of their journey through Yellowstone. A topic of their discussion was the future of the landscape: “The proposition was made by some members that we utilize the result of our exploration by taking up quarter sections of land at the most prominent points of interest.”3 Like Niagara Falls, these early explorers could fence off Old Faithful or Yellowstone Falls, controlling who could see them—and how much they had to pay.
Thankfully, a valiant hero of democratic idealism stepped forward to extinguish this selfish and foolish plan. Langford wrote that Cornelius Hedges, a prominent Yellowstone explorer, chastised the party and said “that there ought to be no private ownership of any portion of that region, but that the whole of it ought to be set apart as a National Park.”
Though this legend—often called the Campfire Story—was considered true history for decades, it has been thoroughly debunked as a nothing but an origin myth for the national park. However, it is still useful from a factual-historical lens because it explains what the leaders of American preservation at the turn of the 20th century believed about themselves. In both the legitimate facts of Niagara Falls and the fabricated origin of Yellowstone, there is a clear villain—private development—and a clear hero—permanent protection for the public good.
Niagara Falls as the argument to save world wonders
Though the Campfire Story is a fable (created to boost Nathaniel Langford’s own reputation) the lesson of Niagara Falls prompted preservationists to take real action.
A prominent example is in the story of the protection of Mammoth Cave, which became a national park in 1941 (you can read the entire origin story in my book). Like Niagara Falls, Mammoth Cave—indeed, the whole Kentucky karst cave country—was one of the early natural wonders to be discovered by the broad public.
Around the turn of the 20th century, there was a boom in central Kentucky to lay claim to lands that had a particular feature—the opening of a cave. If an individual owned the cave entrance, then there was potential to develop it into a major tourist attraction. Operating a “show cave” was much more lucrative than farming. As a result, the dramatic competition to find a cave, develop it, and attract tourists became what has been termed the “Kentucky Cave Wars.”
Of course, the greatest of all attractions was the Mammoth Cave, which was already well known and developed by the 1920s. As the eye of the National Park Service was being turned to the east, in search of parks closer to major population centers, Mammoth Cave rose to the top of the list. Unfortunately, the entrance to the cave was in private hands—but it might soon become available for purchase. To prevent another developer from jumping on the opportunity, park proponents pleaded with those in power to act.
In 1925, M.M. Logan, president of the Mammoth Cave National Park Association, wrote to the Secretary of the Interior, arguing for a subterranean park in the east: “Niagara Falls and the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky should both have been claimed by the National as too important scenically to have passed into private hands.”4 Even in 1925, forty years after restoration work had been begun to return Niagara Falls to its natural glory, its shortsighted development a century before continued to haunt preservationists. “Don’t let this happen again!”
We should still be haunted by Niagara Falls
In 1879, James T. Gardner and Frederick Law Olmsted were commissioned to create a report on the present state and future of Niagara Falls. Olmsted, a landscape architect who designed New York City’s central park and played a role in reserving Yosemite in 1864, penned the report. He said:
“It cannot be doubted that another generation will hold us greatly to account if we so neglect or so badly administer our trust that the Falls of Niagara lose their beauty and their human interest. If we blame the men of a former day for not setting it apart when it was the property of the State and might easily have been done, the Falls of Niagara as the YoSemite and the Yellowstone have in our day been set apart, then how much more culpable shall we be, who knowing their value and perceiving their certain destruction, still refuse to take the necessary measures of their preservation.”
Olmsted’s words should chill us to the bone—such that we take great action to warm them up. “What will you tell your children,” one could imagine him saying in 21st century terms, “when they ask why whole animal populations have gone extinct? When they comment on the air pollution that shrouds their view of the Grand Canyon? When they visit a sacred archeological site that has been graffitied?”
Today, the effort to privatize public lands has different stakes then it did a hundred years ago. It’s no longer about gating off Mammoth Cave or Zion canyon to charge exorbitant ticket fees. If there is any great success to the national park movement, its that the greatest aesthetic landscapes in this nation really have been saved.
But only too a certain degree—and that’s where the threat of privatization in the 21st century looms large. As the map produced by the Center for Biological Diversity displays, development will destroy critical habitat and lands worthy of conservation. While these landscapes might be outside of the borders of our parks, they are part of the broad, interlocking network of public lands that form an umbrella of preservation. Pollution—whether it is chemical, sound, or light—doesn’t recognize the borders of protected lands. Endangers species don’t know they should stay in the park boundary.
We need all these lands. If we don’t stand up for their protection now, then we deserve to be haunted by the ghost of Niagara Falls and the words of Frederick Law Olmsted:
“How much more culpable shall we be, who knowing their value and perceiving their certain destruction, still refuse to take the necessary measures of their preservation.”
National Parks: The American Experience. Alfred Runte. pg. 5
Special Report on the Preservation of Niagara Falls 1879. Frederick Law Olmsted and James Gardner. pg. 10.
The Discovery of Yellowstone Park. Nathaniel Pitt Langford. pg. 117-118.
World Wonder Saved: How Mammoth Cave Became a National Park. Cecil E. Goode. pg. 24.