JOURNAL: Lost Photos, Found Memories: Niagara Falls

Woman posing by the Hotel General Brock sign in Niagara Falls, date unknown.

THE TWIN CITIES of Niagara Falls, New York, and Niagara Falls, Ontario, have experienced a boom-and-bust tourist economy over the years. But the place names associated with Niagara still conjure romance: Cave of the Winds, Maid of the Mist, and Bridal Veil Falls. Fitting perhaps for a destination known for the last two centuries as “Honeymoon Capital of the World.”

For almost that long, folks have photographed the Falls. The first known photo was Hugh Lee Pattinson’s 1840 image of Horseshoe Falls, the largest of the three waterfalls forming Niagara Falls. Using the then-new daguerreotype photographic process, Pattinson would have taken around 20 minutes to shoot that scene.

Fifty years after that photo, the introduction of the Kodak camera dramatically simplified picture-taking, and tourists flocking to Niagara were some of the beneficiaries of this democratization of photography.

Below are samples of Niagara photographs from my collection and that of fellow photo collector William Jones. Most are 20th-century candid snapshots, but there are also 19th-century tintypes and “arcade” photos shot in commercial studios with families posed in front of painted backdrops of the Falls.