Niagara County has much to be proud of in the Niagara Reservation Park. When viewing the undisturbed landscape in the Niagara Falls Reservation Park, it is hard to imagine a day and time when the region was anything but unspoiled.

Green Island (originally Bath Island), the largest of the islands in the American channel of the Niagara River above the Falls, located near Goat Island, was a primary culprit and highly industrialized.

The native plant life on the island was originally altered by Peter A. Porter, who owned the land after 1815. Porter constructed bridges across the island to connect the mainland with Goat Island, starting in 1818. The Porters next built a large bathhouse (hence the name Bath Island) and a toll keepers building where he collected money to view the Falls. The bathhouse was said to contain both warm and coldwater baths. These structures were followed by the Porter and Clark Paper Mill and later a billiard complex was added. One traveler to Bath Island in 1831 chronicled that Bath Island contained “a large paper mill, as well as other mills. There is also a house where the weary traveler may find most comfortable refreshment and dinner.” The establishment also sold “Indian curiosities." Bath Island became so completely built up that even Peter Porter admitted that it had become a “desecration.”

The industrialization of Bath Island stopped in the late 1800s and the island’s name was also changed to Green Island in honor of Andrew Green who strove to protect the Falls from the encroachments of private industries. With the change in possession of the land to the Frederick Olmstead Niagara Reservation Park, there was a renewed zeal to remove anything artificial from within eyesight of the Falls. All industrial and commercial structures were removed from Green Island; and their basements were filled and surface graded. Wooded thickets were allowed to thrive and a few non-native trees and shrubs were also introduced. The pristine state of the island today leaves only written memories to explain its storied industrial past.

Douglas Farley, Director
Erie Canal Discover Center
24 Church St.
Lockport NY 14094
716.439.0431
CanalDiscovery@aol.com
www.NiagaraHistory.org