🌅 America’s First State Park Is Expanding

SOURCE

Secret NYC

WHAT TO KNOW

• A project to expand Niagara Falls State Park by absorbing two neighboring state parks is set to be completed this spring, adding 2 miles of new hiking trails and more than 150 acres of land to the park’s current 400-acre boundary. Once completed, Whirlpool State Park and Devil’s Hole State Park will become “zones” within Niagara Falls State Park, merging the three spaces into a single park corridor with five miles of continuous shoreline overlooking the Niagara River. The New York government hopes the expansion will create a more connected experience and encourage visitors to explore attractions beyond the falls.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Niagara Falls State Park is the oldest state park in the U.S. The park was established in 1885 after New York Governor—and future U.S. President—Grover Cleveland signed a bill into law to purchase the land around the falls and create the Niagara Reservation. The bill was the result of more than a decade of advocacy by a group of early environmentalists known as the Free Niagara movement, which included notable figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Darwin. Today, the park welcomes more than 9 million visitors and generates around $1 billion in traveler spending each year.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Geologically speaking, Niagara Falls is quite young, having been formed about 12,000 years ago by the same glacial-melt activity that formed the Great Lakes at the end of the last Ice Age. The formation of the falls was a slow process that continues today as the annual freezing and thawing of the Niagara River eats away at the underlying rock and steadily pushes the falls upstream.