About Niagara Falls State Park

In 1869, while working on the Buffalo Park System, Frederick Law Olmsted visited nearby Niagara Falls along with architect Henry Hobson Richardson and Buffalo civic activist William Dorsheimer. The men were shocked to see “mills and factories everywhere, hovels, fences and patent medicine signs” developed alongside the shore and that hotels and tourist attractions were charging people for a look at the natural spectacle. 

This realization birthed the Free Niagara movement and joined together environmentalists and intellectuals like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Charles Dawin to advocate for the area’s natural beauty and its protection from commercial exploitation. It was during this time that Olmsted produced a report for New York State arguing that the landscape around the falls was integral to the site and should be made accessible to the public.  

A breakthrough came in 1883 when New York Governor Grover Cleveland signed a bill calling for the establishment of a state park at the falls. Two years later, the bill was signed into law, creating the Niagara Reservation and limiting the number of factories in the areas downstream. The park became the first of its kind to be created by a state government.  

In 1886, Olmsted and partner Calvert Vaux were given the opportunity to design the landscape around Niagara Falls. While they did not design Niagara Falls State Park in detail, they left a vision for what the park should look and feel like. Their design concepts were depicted in a “General Plan for Improvements” (1887) and incorporated into the park’s final design.  

The Olmsted Brothers firm also has connections to the landscape. In a 1916 report, the firm provided guidance on the proposed growth of the area and made recommendations for classes of parks to incorporate. The report also noted limitations the park commission would face such as lack of funding and foresight.  

Over the succeeding years, the Olmsted vision for Niagara Falls was destroyed. Powerful urbanist Robert Moses enlarged roadways and added huge parking lots along the Niagara River in order to accommodate the growing use of cars.  

In 2012, New York State Parks launched the Niagara Falls Landscape Restoration Plan, a nearly $50 million project to bring back the original Olmsted vision for the park and restore gardens of native plants, natural surface treatments and uniform and appropriate park furnishings.  

Today, the nation’s oldest state park remains free and open to the public.
 

Additional Resources:

Olmsted and Scenic Preservation

Heritage Moments: Frederick Law Olmsted and the stroll that saved Niagara