This isn’t tourism related, but it is an interesting historical tidbit nonetheless…
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Shooting for a place in history Canada’s game started in Niagara Falls, if you believe what a pair of Swedish researchers have uncovered.
Ask hockey historians where the birthplace of hockey is and the most common answers you’ll hear are Kingston, Montreal and Windsor, N. S. Niagara Falls wasn’t even on the radar.
But a recent discovery in a 162-year-old book written by a British soldier has suddenly put Niagara into the field as one of the first locations to host an ice hockey match.
The passage, written by Capt. Richard Levinge, describes a jovial scene on Chippawa Creek where 80 or more soldiers split into two teams to play “hockey on ice.” The creek, known now as the Welland River, is a tributary of the Niagara River located in the Niagara Falls neighbourhood of Chippawa.
Though the book in question, “The Echoes From the Backwood; or Sketches Of Transatlantic Life,” was published in London in 1846, the historical significance of a single paragraph on page 250 wasn’t discovered until July 10 this year.
From the Niagara Falls Review:
The stone manse cuts an imposing figure atop Dufferin Islands.
Built in Tudor style, Oak Hall -the former home of mining magnate Sir Harry Oakes -still bears his name. The Oakes coat of arms etched into the stone during his $500,000 renovation of the property in the 1920s is softened by time, but still clearly visible to anyone who stops by.
The five-hole golf course Oakes built to while away the hours when in Niagara Falls has long since been replaced by a nine-hole par-three public course run by the Niagara Parks Commission, which purchased the property in 1959.
“I think people are intimidated by this old mansion,” said Jim Hill, the Parks’ superintendent of heritage.
“But people can come inside and go through it, on the main floor, anyway.”
“American Treasures of the Library of Congress” has a couple of nice pictures you can view online of Niagara Falls in 1846. The pictures were taken by Captain Michael Seymour:
Captain Michael Seymour, commanding officer of the H.M.S. Vindictive, toured the eastern seaboard for fifteen days in July 1846, traveling through Boston, the state of New York, Philadelphia, and finally Washington, D.C. He captured the landscape of a growing republic in the British tradition of topographical draftsmanship. In a letter to his daughter he described Niagara Falls at length, writing, “They are quite terrific to stand near, and contemplate from some, of the points of view either below or overhanging them. I, of course, tried to make a few sketches, but it is impossible to give on paper the Grandeur and immensity they possess. . . .”
The Niagara Falls Reporter has a nice article about Sandy Allen, the world’s tallest woman, who used to work in Niagara Falls. Pretty much the entire article is about her work at Guinness:
Sandy stood out from the other offerings along the street like a cheetah against a white backdrop. It wasn’t just her height that grabbed your attention, it was the fact that she was real. Every other museum storefront was occupied by wax figures, each one creepier than the last. Encountering a real person amid this plasticized landscape was akin to meeting an earthling on Mars — it was a shock to the senses.
A cynic might say Sandy Allen was fortunate in that she was paid to essentially be herself each day in front of that museum. A romantic knows her life there was as tragic as the human condition gets without physical abuse.
A quote contained in her obituary brought me back nearly 30 years.
“At Guinness there were days when I felt like I was doing a freak show,” Allen said. “When that feeling came too often, I knew I had to come back home.”
Someone has started a web site to document the old amusement parks that were in the Niagara Region.
Niagaras Lost Amusement Parks is dedicated to preserving the memories of the various Amusement Parks which have dissappeared from the landscape of the Niagara Region of Ontario, and Niagara Falls, NY. This site covers over 100 years of Amusement Park history, and is a work in progress. As more information or photos beomce available, the site will be updated. Please note that this site only covers the Amusement Parks & Water Parks of the area, and not the tourist places like Clifton Hill and the wax museums.
There are currently sections on:
- Maple Leaf Village Park
- Tower View Amusement Park
- Whitewater Park
- Wet And Wild - Prudhomme’s Landing
- Pyramid Place
They hope to add sections on:
- Frontier Amusement Park
- Skylon Amusement Park
- Miniature World
- Lakeside Park
- Crystal Beach Amusement Park
- Grimsby Beach
- Erie Beach
- Falls Street Fair
- Niagara Splash Waterpark
I’m sure if you have any pictures or information, the person who runs the site would be happy to hear from you. There are a couple of email address on the web site.
From the Niagara Falls Review:
The rusty scow - perched on a small piece of land in the Niagara River about 2,500 feet above the Horseshoe Falls -is a reminder of what could have been.
Today it remains an icon for millions of tourists, easily visible from shore stranded on its perch just above the falls.
It was just around 3 p. m. on Aug. 6, 1918 when a tug owned by the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. of Buffalo struck a sandbar, colliding with enough force to snap the line, causing the unnamed vessel it was pulling to drift toward the brink of the falls.
Many of you may remember a couple of years ago I performed a marriage in the Minolta Tower. I’m able to do this because of certain responsibilities with my church. I was recently speaking with an older man that had these same responsibilities years ago. We were talking about Dean Sullivan’s jump, and it made him think of the funeral he did years ago for a daredevil. He couldn’t remember who it was, but after some prompting, we figured out it was Karel Soucek.
Karel had survived going over the Falls, but ended up dying during a stunt in Houston. Anyway, he was from around Hamilton, and this friend of mine was asked to officiate at the funeral. These are his recollections:
That’s him… He was of Czech origin and was buried in the cemetery reserved for the Hill family, one of whose members went over the Falls in a barrel. It was bitterly cold when we buried him I remember… his mother came from Czechoslovakia for the funeral. His manager was a friend of [someone he knew]. He couldn’t do the funeral, so I was asked. As far as I can remember, the Catholic church would have nothing to do with it and so the family came to us through Ernie. The eulogy was short, as you can imagine, because I didn’t know him and it was hardly possible to say more than that he had a dream which he fulfilled. The ‘Red’ Hill family offered the grave site as a measure of respect for a fellow daredevil. The media were present but I disallowed cameras at the service itself.
What a small world!
From the Niagara Falls Review:
Once a carnie town, always a carnie town?
That’s the logic both downtown businesses and the tourism industry are using to get you to buy into events like Monday’s plunge from the Skylon Tower by daredevil Dean Sullivan and next month`s Daredevil Days festival.
Niagara Falls has a nearly 200-year-old history of stuntmen and stuntwomen. As long as people with more courage than common sense have been coming to Niagara Falls, they have been defying death by going over, jumping from, walking across or riding through the incredible geographic features that define Niagara Falls.
When Sullivan rappelled from the Skylon Tower, it revived the dormant Niagara Falls tradition of cheating death to amuse the masses.
“You have to go back to our roots. They came here to see the daredevils,” said Wayne Thomson, a city councillor and chairman of the Daredevil Days festival coming up in August.
“After you look at the falls… what do people wonder about? What are they fascinated about? They’re fascinated about daredevils,” Thomson said.
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