The photos have been locked away for over 40 years; an enormous project to make Niagara Falls more stunningly attractive was underway in 1969 when U.S. engineers from both the army and civil sectors, diverted the flow of the American falls for months to "correct" the american's cascade falls.


The twin landmarks (triplets if you consider that the Bridal Falls is actually separate) are some of the world's more powerful waterfalls. It took a massive damn to stop the flow as the Americans put together plans to remove debris that collected at the base of the American falls. The U.S.Army Corp of Engineers strategically bolted faults in the rocks to delay the inevitable erosion of the falls. They planed on removing hundreds of thousands of tons of rock from the base of the falls, a plan later abandoned due to the sheer size and cost of the project.  

Much of the debris was left behind after a massive rock-slide in 1931 and again in 1954. In 1965, reporters from the Niagara Falls Gazette warned that the falls would eventually cease to flow completely if the rocks weren't removed. This was not very well founded, but it caught the attention of the media and later of the government.


These photos and this video show the extent of the project. 

It was the same year they put a man on the moon and it makes you wonder where all the money came from... it was a great year for incredible projects and immense spending on making the world a bit more awesome!

The Skylon tower stand in the background as seen from the middle of the riverbed that once flowed at more than 60,000 gallons a second. A 27,800 ton rock-dam was constructed to divert the water. On June 12, 1969 the river stopped flowing for the first time in over 12,000 years. The dam was later broken and the falls thundered again on November 25th before nearly 2700 onlookers.

We've all heard the stories of "The Day the Falls Stopped", but it usually refers to the ice-bridge dam that stopped the horseshoe falls. This project was proof that human engineering could master such an immense and incredible force. 

In the upper right of this image you can see the rock-dam holding back the waters of the mighty Niagara River.

Cheers to having a natural world wonder right here in our backyards. (And a huge cheers to the Americans spending millions on trying to make their falls as beautiful as ours... without fruition I might add!)


-D-