Labor Day Excursion to Portage Falls
This railroad broadside was posted in Rochester New York to advertise a special holiday excursion train to Portage Falls and the Glen Iris Estate.
"Fill your lunch basket, take your family and friends and spend a delightful day at PORTAGE FALLS and the surrounding country, unsurpassed for beauty and grandeur. The three Falls, together with the picturesque walks, groves and ravines, make it a veritable fairyland. Historical GLEN IRIS, the estate of W.P. Letchworth, with its beautiful lawns and walks, is always a place of interest to the traveler. Here may be seen the old Indian Council House and many Indian curiosities. Near by is the grave of Mary Jamison, known as the "White Women of the Genesee" Tourists who took the train were promised 5 1/2 hours at Portage Falls! For more information on the impact these trains had on Mr. Letchworth and the Glen Iris, see the Story of the Glen Iris Inn.
People, Places, and Things in Letchworth Park History The Portage Bridge
If you were a passenger on the Buffalo Branch of the Erie Railroad, you would probably be given a handbill as you approached the Genesee Valley. "Passengers should not fail to see the longest and highest wooden bridge in the United States.." the handbill proclaimed, ".. if not the world, and one of the grandest views on the Western Continent!" Actually you wouldn't be able to miss the bridge, for your train passed over it. On good days, if you were on schedule, the train might even stop, giving passengers a chance to venture out on the wooden walkways next to the track or descend steps into the wooden bowels of the Bridge itself. Far below were the tumbling waters of the Upper Falls, while to the north rose the mists of the Middle Falls and the Portage cliffs beyond.
Indeed, a visit to the Portage Wooden High Bridge was not easily forgotten.
Work on the Bridge began on July 1st, 1852. The construction of such a massive engineering project had not been easy. Stone piers, held in place with nearly ten thousand yards of masonry were laid in the riverbed, and slowly the great wooden towers were raised by the scores of Irish workmen hired for the project. It was hard and dangerous work, and more than one worker was killed by falling rocks or careless steps that resulted in being swept over the Upper Falls. Finally the Bridge was finished. It towered a total of 234 feet above the Upper Falls, and was 800 feet long. A railroad station was built on the east end of the Bridge, as was the Cascade House, a hotel for local sightseers. The project had cost nearly two hundred thousand dollars, and had consumed an estimated two hundred and fifty acres of pine forest. The Bridge was opened on August 14, 1852, the first test train crossing the Bridge with little incident beyond a "riot" which broke out among the workmen clamoring for a seat on the first train. Dedication ceremonies were held on the 25th, complete with a grand banquet in on the flats below the Bridge, and speeches by New York Governor Washington Hunt and President Loder of the Erie Railroad Company. Thousands gathered for those opening ceremonies, and tens of thousands more visited the Bridge over the next twenty-three years. Among those that gazed out on the Genesee Valley from deck of the Bridge was the Buffalo businessman, William Pryor Letchworth. As the years and the mists of the Upper Falls began to take their toll, and by the 1870's there was talk about replacing the Bridge with an iron one. The Erie Railroad floated the idea, but found that the fare-paying public was opposed to tearing down the grand Wooden Bridge. In the end it was a natural disaster, not the Erie Railroad Company, that claimed the Portage Bridge. On the night of May 5-6, 1874 watchman William T. Davis inspected the Bridge after a westbound passenger train crossed shortly before 11PM. An hour later he greeted his replacement, Pardon Earl, and headed home. At about 12:45 AM he looked back at the Bridge, and, according to his account, didn't see anything other than "the usual signals."
The next train was eastbound, and passed Earl's little watchhouse on the east end of the Bridge around 12:50 AM. Earl walked across to the west end, and then returned back. It was then he noticed a small blaze near the west end of the bridge. He ran quickly to the fire and tried to stamp it out, but broke through the decking.
Next he tried to fight the growing fire with a hose connected to a water pipe, but wasn't able to turn the value on due to corrosion to the metal. The Bridge was doomed. Mr. Letchworth awoke in his bedroom at the Glen Iris about three hours later. He quickly went out on the lawn to see what was happening and later reported "the spectacle presented at precisely four o'clock was fearfully grand, every timber in the Bridge seemed then to be ignited, and an open network of the fire was stretched across the upper end of the Valley." A half-hour later the mighty Bridge collapsed, sending a shower of sparks through the Glen. Only the fact that a light rain was now falling saved the buildings on the Glen Iris Estate.
People from miles around came to see the smoking ruins of the Wooden Bridge, including officials of the Erie Railroad. The company was determined to rebuild, and this time in iron. They moved swiftly, contracting the ironwork to the Watson Manufacturing Co of Paterson NJ only four days after the fire. So quick was their response that rumors, heard in the Valley even today, had the Erie Railroad Company setting the fire, and that the iron was already milled and in warehouses waiting for delivery to the site. Actually, according to the chief engineer George Morison, the ironworkers had to wait for the iron, delaying the raising of the first tower till June 13th. Morison also stated that the final design for the new bridge was "prepared in the hurry of a pressing necessity", and that he and the other engineers "were obliged to conform in a measure to the plan of the original timber structure." For example the masonry that had been laid for the original bridge made them extend the width of each of the six towers from the desired 25 or 30 feet to a full 50 feet. But Morison and his crew proceeded quickly, the last tower being erected in only eleven days. The Bridge was ready for testing by July 31st, and had only cost half as much as the original.
Would the strange looking iron structure, built so quickly and cheaply actually work? No one in the large crowd that gathered at the Bridge on that hot July afternoon knew for sure. First a single locomotive inched across from the east to the west. Then it was joined by a second, which after crossing, was hooked to another engine. Finally six engines crossed the Bridge together, flags waving, to the cheers and salutes of the crowd.
More than a century has passed since the Iron "Spider" Bridge opened for railroad traffic. Addition work has been done on the Bridge, tracks, and foundations, but it is the same Bridge that still stands today. Although the Bridge is private property and the trains that cross it no longer stop to let their passengers walk high above the Upper Falls, tourists to Letchworth Park still marvel on the manmade wonder called the Portage Bridge.
Sources
Anderson, Genesee Echoes
Dardenne, Bob and Tom Cook. "The Bridge". Upstate Magazine,
Democrat and Chronicle, September 18, 1977.
Morison, George S.. The New Portage Bridge.
Paper Presented November 27th, 1875 to American Society of Civil Engineers. (booklet in Wm P Letchworth Museum Collection) Tom Cook
Artifacts, Documents, and Primary Sources
From Letchworth Park History
Edward Hunt to George Williams
April 4, 1851
The preservation of the natural beauty of the Genesee Valley was one of Mr. Letchworth's goals in life. This letter, written by Edward Hunt to George Williams before Mr. Letchworth came to the Valley shows that he wasn't the first to consider conserving the wildness of Portage.
Edward Hunt was a member of a pioneer family in the town of Portage, which includes the land east of the river from the Glen Iris. His brother was Washington Hunt, Governor of New York State at the time the letter was written. A West Point graduate, Edward would perish in the Civil War, leaving behind a young widow by the name of Helen Hunt. Helen would later marry Henry Jackson, and become a famous western author of the late 19th century.
George William had come to the Genesee Valley in 1816 as a young pioneer. He became an agent on the Cottinger and later a land speculator in his own right. At the time of the letter, he was a prosperous farmer and owned much of the land east of the River, including the modern day Parade Grounds. He also owned much of the land around the Lower Falls, which explains why Hunt wrote to him. It should be noted that though Hunt was certainly interested in preserving the ancient forests and natural beauty, his motives were different from those of the man who would eventually preserve the Portage Falls, William Pryor Letchworth.
April 4, 1851
Col. Geo. Williams:
Dear Sir:
I will take the liberty of freely stating to you certain ideas, which have lately frequently passed through my mind, concerning some matters in which you have a direct interest. I suppose it is now certain that the Hornellsville & Attica R.R. will soon be completed, and that the grand ravines of the Genesee will in two years be echoing the scream of the locomotive. A constant current of travel will then set in through your town, hitherto so secluded from the observation of the great world without. The effect will soon be to attract to the Genesee Falls an unprecedented degree of attention. They will be accessible in 12 hours from N. York, and will be a convenient halting place for summer excursions to Niagara and the Lakes.
Now considering the remarkable beauty and interest of the scenery of the Genesee in Portage, it seems to me clear that it must soon be among the places of habitual summer resort, and not among the least attractive. In view of this prospect, permit me to please the cause of good taste, with special reference to the Lower Falls. Fortunately they have thus far to a great extent, escaped the barbarous mutilations which have so nearly obliterated the natural beauty of the Middle Falls. And the earnest petition of good taste, cannot fail to be in every cultivated mind, that the natural beauties of the Lower Falls may never been invaded by the ruthless hand of man. Let no trace of human hands enter that scene of beauty, except such as may be required for facilitation the inspection of its visitors.
Especially and emphatically let no tree be cut from the river banks on either side above or below, within the general view. You have always showed such good taste in preserving trees by the roadsides and in your fields, that I feel confident of your entire agreement with me in this respect. Should those banks be stripped of trees, the beauty and interest of those falls would almost be destroyed. The roads approaching them should be for a long distant forest roads. Nor should the ugly board palaces of man be allowed to intrude at all into the precincts so evidently marked by Nature for eternal conservation to beauty. The Middle Falls, are now nearly hopeless in this respect, but the Upper and Lower Falls still have natural beauty to be preserved. I believe you are their proprietor, and rejoice that there is so good a security against their being barbarized.
I come now to another point. When the R. Road is completed, a good hotel placed as conveniently as possible for visitors to the Falls, will be a decided desideratum. I suppose the Portageville station will be east of the river. If so, a hotel located somewhere near the site of Hornby Lodge could be easily connected by an omnibus with the R.R. Station. A location commanding a full view of the upper and Middle Falls would be the best, and a road for carriages to near the Lower Falls could be opened at small expense. I think a house to accommodate 100 persons would be well filled through the summer months. Such an enterprise would be much more likely to succeed by being on a liberal scale than on a meaner one. There would b e sundry expenses of road making, preparing grounds etc. which would be indispensable on any scale, and would be least relatively on the moderately large scale of building. The establishment of such a house would induce hundreds to stop who would not otherwise think of it. Once known as a place of resort it would, under proper management, grow more and more attractive. The drives in Portage are man of them decidedly pleasant, which with the fine scenery would induce many city family's to spend weeks of their summer at a good Hotel established near Hornby Lodge.
There is one suggestion which I would make relative to the Lower Falls. To facilitate access on the east side some simple stairs down to the level of the Table Rock are needed. And a light rustic foot bridge thrown across from the main shore to the sugar loaf, with one from the sugar loaf to the angle of the Table Rock would afford a simple and sufficient means of visiting the whole locality. I think a very trifling expense would erect these two bridges. On from the sugar loaf to the Table Rock would afford a new and particularity fine view of the whole Fall.
The ideas which I have now thrown out, you will take at their true worth - I of course intend them but as suggestions, which if you find of value you will use as you please. Though now so long absent from Portage, I do not lose the interest with which early associations and pleasant memories invest it. Its good name and good estate are, and I trust long will be subjects of honest interest with me. Nature has bestowed on her so ample a dower of magnificent scenery, that we are all called upon to prevent vandalism from mutilating, and ignorance or sluggishness from obscuring her fair possessions. That scenery can never be known as it deserves, with out the Hotel I have suggested. Individual enterprise or a stock association will soon be called upon to carry our this ides. I know you will not blame me for writing to you as I now have done, for you will too well understand my reasons and motives. With assurances of continued esteem,
I remain,
Very truly yours etc.
E.B. Hunt