58 Fun Facts About Niagara Falls

Which Canadian city lies about 70 km from Niagara Falls, straight across the western end of Lake Ontario?

Toronto is close as the crow flies, but drivers have to take the long way there: the highway from Niagara curves all the way around the western end of the lake.

Where does the water that pours over Niagara Falls finally reach the sea?

The Atlantic Ocean, though not quickly: below the falls the river runs into Lake Ontario, the last of the Great Lakes, and only its outlet, the St. Lawrence River, carries the water on to the coast.

Niagara Falls formed as the ice retreated at the end of which glaciation, named for a state on Lake Michigan?

The Wisconsin glaciation was the continent's most recent ice advance; as it melted back, water from the newly formed Great Lakes spilled over the Niagara Escarpment on its way to the sea.

Which large US city lies just 27 km (17 miles) southeast of Niagara Falls?

Buffalo sat close enough to be wired to the falls: in November 1896 the new turbines there began sending their electricity to the city.

Which actress played the scheming wife in Niagara, a 1953 film noir shot in Technicolor?

Marilyn Monroe took top billing over Joseph Cotten as a wife plotting to have her husband killed at the falls, a role that lifted her to full movie-star status.

A statue on Goat Island honours which inventor, whose alternating-current patents helped turn Niagara Falls into a power source?

Nikola Tesla's alternating-current designs let Niagara's power be sent to a distant city in 1896, a key victory for alternating current over the rival direct-current system.

In which sequel does the hero rescue a child at Niagara Falls?

Superman II sends reporters Clark Kent and Lois Lane to the falls on assignment; after the rescue, a suspicious Lois throws herself into the river to make Clark reveal his powers.

Which sitcom couple married at Niagara Falls in a 2009 episode titled 'Niagara', sneaking onto a boat before the church ceremony?

Jim and Pam's Office wedding aired on NBC on 8 October 2009; Jim lets slip that Pam is pregnant, and the pair sneak off to marry privately on the boat.

Two days before her 1901 barrel ride, Annie Edson Taylor sent what over the falls to test the barrel?

Taylor sent her cat over the Horseshoe Falls in the barrel two days earlier; contrary to rumours, the cat survived the plunge and posed with her for photographs afterwards.

Annie Edson Taylor's barrel plunge on 24 October 1901 took place on what occasion?

Her 63rd birthday was the day the schoolteacher climbed into the barrel, hoping fame would secure her old age; instead her own agent vanished with the barrel and the fortune never came.

On one tightrope crossing of the Niagara Gorge, Charles Blondin stopped midway to cook what?

An omelette: Blondin carried a small stove onto the rope, lit a fire and cooked it high above the river; in one account he lowered the result to passengers on a boat below.

Whom did Charles Blondin carry on his back across the Niagara Gorge in 1859?

His manager, Harry Colcord, rode across clinging to Blondin's back, under orders to sway with him and never try to balance himself, or both would fall to their deaths.

What did Nik Wallenda have to do for the first time on his 2012 Niagara Falls wire walk?

Wear a safety harness he did, for the first time in his life, because broadcaster ABC insisted on a tether; the walk itself followed a two-year fight for permission on both sides of the border.

What did Nik Wallenda have to show after his 2012 Niagara wire walk?

His passport: Wallenda carried it with him on the wire and handed it to the border officers waiting at the far end, moments after the first tightrope walk at Niagara since 1896.

What did Niagara Falls do for a time in March 1848?

Ran almost dry: an ice jam upstream choked off the river, and people walked out onto the exposed bed to pick up relics before the water returned.

Who dammed the American Falls dry in 1969?

The Army Corps of Engineers had the rock-and-earth dam built so geologists could study the boulder pile below the falls; clearing it was judged too costly, so the rubble stayed and the water came back.

Roughly how long until Niagara Falls erodes the remaining 32 km to the lake and ceases to exist?

About 50,000 years is the geologists' estimate: the falls have already retreated some 11 km upstream from where they began, and diverting water for hydropower has slowed the erosion.

Roughly how tall is Horseshoe Falls?

57 m (187 ft) is the clear drop at Horseshoe Falls; the American Falls looks far shorter because fallen boulders heaped at its base cut the visible drop roughly in half.

The park Ontario created beside Niagara Falls to keep hucksters off the riverbank is named for which monarch?

Queen Victoria Park was Ontario's answer to the hucksters and speculators crowding the riverbank; the commission set up to run it now manages parkland along the river's whole length.

Father Louis Hennepin, credited with the first written description of Niagara Falls, was on which explorer's expedition?

La Salle took the friar along on his push into the Great Lakes, and the book Hennepin published back in France became a bestseller that brought the falls to Europe's attention.

Barrel survivor Bobby Leach died in 1926 after what mishap in New Zealand?

Slipping on an orange peel did what Horseshoe Falls could not: Leach, who rode a steel barrel over in 1911, hurt his leg on tour, gangrene set in, and he died after it was amputated.

What became stranded on the rocks above Horseshoe Falls in August 1918?

An iron scow broke loose from its tug on 6 August 1918 and grounded just above the brink; riverman Red Hill Sr. went out hand over hand along a rescue line to untangle it, and both crewmen were hauled ashore.

Niagara's Honeymoon Bridge, replaced by the Rainbow Bridge, collapsed in 1938 because of what?

Ice in the gorge piled against the Honeymoon Bridge's abutments until the steel arch tore loose on 27 January 1938; it had hung on for more than a day as crowds gathered to watch it fall.

Which Niagara Falls tower has 'Yellow Bug' elevators climbing its outside?

The Skylon Tower's three glass-enclosed Yellow Bug elevators ride up the outside of its shaft in 52 seconds; the tower stands so near the border that both countries' governments had to approve it.

What kind of ride has carried visitors above the Niagara Whirlpool since 1916?

A cable car: the Whirlpool Aero Car runs between two points on the same shore, yet the river bends so sharply beneath it that riders cross the international border four times a trip.

For how much did Hooker Chemical sell its Love Canal chemical landfill to the Niagara Falls school district in 1953?

One dollar bought the school board a canal full of buried chemical waste; when it surfaced among the homes built around it, President Carter approved the first federal emergency funds ever granted for a disaster that wasn't natural.

The Battle of Lundy's Lane, fought in what is now Niagara Falls, Ontario, was part of which conflict?

The War of 1812 saw few bloodier fights than Lundy's Lane on 25 July 1814: both commanding generals were wounded, and the battered Americans pulled back, their advance into the province halted.

Which company was hired in 1893 to design the alternating-current power system for the falls?

Westinghouse Electric had tried the idea two years earlier at a small hydro plant in Colorado; at Niagara it scaled it up, and the giant generators it built began sending out power in August 1895.

Niagara's giant 1961 hydro plant is named for which New York official?

Robert Moses chaired the power authority that built it after a rockslide wrecked the old Schoellkopf station in 1956; it was the Western world's largest hydropower plant when it started up.

Which landscape architect led the campaign that made the falls at Niagara a public reservation in 1885?

Frederick Law Olmsted, a designer of Central Park, spent years lobbying to rescue the falls from private exploitation; the land was bought for the public in 1885, and he went on to help lay out the reservation.

Who was pulled ashore as Roger Woodward, seven, went over Horseshoe Falls in 1960?

His sister Deanne, 17, was hauled out by two bystanders just short of the brink; Roger was swept over and bobbed up in the pool below, where a tour-boat crew threw him a ring.

What made Kirk Jones's plunge over Horseshoe Falls in 2003 a first?

He survived with no flotation device, barrel or other protection on 20 October 2003, the first person known to do so; he died in 2017 trying again inside an inflatable ball.

Maria Spelterini crossed the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope in 1876 with what strapped to her feet?

Peach baskets were on her feet for her second crossing that July; a week later she walked the rope blindfolded, and days after that with her wrists and ankles shackled.

Sam Patch began Niagara's daredevil tradition in 1829 by doing what?

Jumping from a platform at the foot of Goat Island, Patch survived two leaps into the river that October, then died weeks later when a jump into the Genesee River at Rochester went wrong.

Karel Soucek survived Horseshoe Falls in a barrel in 1984 but died a year later in a barrel drop inside which venue?

The Houston Astrodome was where Soucek's barrel was hoisted to the roof for a drop into a water tank in January 1985; released too early, it struck the tank's rim, and he died of his injuries.

Which winter attraction below Niagara Falls broke up under sightseers in February 1912, killing three?

Ice bridge was the name for the thick natural span that formed below the falls most winters; as it broke apart, teenager Burrell Hecock turned back to help a stranded couple, and all three were swept away.

The Cave of the Winds at Niagara Falls was originally named after which Greek god?

Aeolus' Cave, for the Greek keeper of the winds, was its first name; the cave itself was brought down in the 1950s after rockfalls made it unsafe, but the name survives for the walkways beneath Bridal Veil Falls.

A mummy displayed for well over a century in a Niagara Falls museum turned out to be probably which pharaoh?

Ramesses I is who experts believe lay unrecognised among the curiosities of the Niagara Falls Museum for more than 130 years; an Atlanta museum bought the mummy and returned it to Egypt in 2003.

Which US president toured Niagara Falls on 6 September 1901, hours before he was shot?

William McKinley visited the falls that morning while attending the Pan-American Exposition, then returned to the fairgrounds, where anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot him that afternoon; he died eight days later.

Niagara Falls footage became a waterfall in which 2007 blockbuster?

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End used location footage shot at the falls in October 2006 for the sequence in which the crew cross into Davy Jones' Locker to rescue Jack Sparrow.

In which 2003 Jim Carrey comedy does the hero learn at Niagara Falls that his rival has been made anchorman?

In Bruce Almighty (2003) Bruce Nolan's on-air meltdown at the falls gets him fired, setting up his complaint to God; Steve Carell played the rival, Evan Baxter, who got the anchor job.

The 'Slowly I turned...' sketch, where 'Niagara Falls' triggers a rage, comes from which tradition?

Vaudeville gave the Three Stooges the routine: they filmed it for a 1943 feature, saw the scene cut, and had a whole short, Gents Without Cents, built around the footage a year later.

Which Niagara Falls, Ontario street packed with wax museums, haunted houses and a giant Ferris wheel calls itself the 'Street of Fun'?

Clifton Hill was once plain Ferry Road, the way down to the rowboats that carried travellers across the river before any bridge spanned the gorge.

The caprock of the Niagara Escarpment formed on a sea floor long before the dinosaurs, during which geological period?

Silurian-age limestone and dolomite of the Lockport Formation form the caprock, which erodes slower than the soft layers beneath, so the lip collapses in chunks.

In which direction does the Niagara River flow on its 58 km run between two Great Lakes?

North: the river drops about 99 metres on its short run from the upper lake to the lower one, roughly half of it in a single leap at the falls.

In 1827 Niagara hotel owners drew huge crowds by sending a condemned schooner over the falls carrying what?

Live animals, advertised as ferocious wild beasts, turned out to be mostly small bears, raccoons, a dog and a goose; the wreck of the Michigan is remembered as the first publicity stunt at the falls.

What gives the water pouring over Niagara Falls its striking green colour?

Dissolved salts and rock flour, some 60 tonnes a minute, are swept over the brink: the green is finely ground stone the river has scoured from its own bed, a sign of how hard it erodes.

The Great Farini, Blondin's tightrope rival at Niagara, is credited with inventing which circus act?

The human cannonball was patented by Farini, born William Hunt and raised in Ontario; in 1860 he had strung a cable across the gorge purely to outdo Blondin.

The barrel Peter DeBernardi and Jeffery Petkovich rode over Niagara in 1989 carried a slogan against what?

Drug use was the target: the barrel bore a warning that drugs kill; both men survived the plunge, and police stopped them when they tried again a year later.

Which cartoon character tried to go over the falls in a barrel in the 1956 short Niagara Fools?

Niagara Fools (1956) is a Walter Lantz short in which Woody Woodpecker keeps trying to shoot the falls in a barrel while a park ranger tries to stop him.

What souvenir do Maid of the Mist passengers receive free with every ticket?

A poncho with a hood is handed over before boarding, and the operator warns riders may still get wet: the boat noses into the basin of Horseshoe Falls with the falls on three sides.

The Niagara Movement, founded near the falls in 1905 by W. E. B. Du Bois, was a forerunner of which organisation?

The NAACP grew out of it within five years; Du Bois's group took its name from the falls near its first meeting, for which the founders crossed the border to a hotel on the Ontario shore.

Which engineer's 1855 Niagara suspension bridge was the world's first working railway suspension bridge?

John A. Roebling, later designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, took over after the first engineer quit in a dispute over money, and in 1855 trains began crossing his span.

Under a 1950 treaty, what happens to the flow over Niagara Falls at night and in winter?

It is cut by about half: the treaty guarantees the higher minimum only during tourist-season daylight, and the rest of the time lets the power stations take the difference for electricity.

Riverman Red Hill Jr. died in 1951 going over the falls in a craft of what?

Red Hill Jr., son of Niagara's famous riverman, went over Horseshoe Falls on 5 August 1951 in 'The Thing', a vessel of inner tubes lashed inside a net; it broke apart and his body was found the next day.

The Niagara Reservation, opened in 1885 on the American bank of the falls, is recognised as the country's what?

Oldest state park is its claim: a campaign called Free Niagara won the reservation so the public could again reach views that private owners and their mills had closed off.

Which waterway lets ships bypass Niagara Falls as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway?

The Welland Canal lifts ships over the Niagara Escarpment in just eight locks; the first canal on the route needed 40 wooden ones for the same climb.

Since 2020, the Maid of the Mist's new tour boats have been powered by what?

Electric batteries drive the two boats launched for the 2020 season in place of diesel engines, so the trip into the spray is now a noticeably quieter one.