Mid-1800s: Falls Street becomes the Heart of a New Village

Falls Street started to be depicted on community maps and atlases in the 1840s.  Originally a sleepy dirt road dotted with a few residences, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution marked a transformation of Falls Street.  It soon emerged as the commercial heart of Manchester and what ultimately became incorporated as the Village of Niagara Falls in 1848.  Falls Street was home to various types of shops and businesses that serviced new residents and workers in the growing number of grist mills and other manufacturing establishments along the River near the Falls.

Growth was sparked by using the river to turn water wheels and a more significant boom to business on Falls Street came with the idea of using the Niagara to generate electricity.  By 1881, a small generating station had been built by Jacob Schoellkopf, providing a small amount of electricity to light the village, illuminate the Falls, and to provide power to several of the mills.  However, this early generation and use of electricity was limited to generating direct current (DC) power—which is difficult to transmit over more than a few miles—so industrial development tended to cluster around the source of the on either side of the Falls.  By the 1890s, the Adams Generating Station, the world’s first producer of alternating current (AC) power was opened, astounding the world by sending electricity 25 miles away to the City of Buffalo.

By the mid-1800s, the village was also starting to emerge as an international destination for tourists.  Driven by depictions of Niagara Falls in sketches and paintings appearing in homes and public buildings throughout North America and Europe, Niagara became increasingly famous and the number of visitors to the area rose each year.  The foot of Falls Street, being a short walk from the brink of the Falls, soon also became the place where visitors and tourists sought out lodging in a collection of new hotels, inns and eating establishments.