Newly discovered photos
and a home movie show the moment the iconic waterfall came to a standstill!
Its been 42 years, a previously unseen set of photos of the mighty Niagara Falls reduced to nothing more than a barren cliff-top have surfaced.
The stark images reveal North America 's iconic - and most powerful - waterfall to be almost as dry as a desert.
In June 1969, U.S. Engineers diverted the flow of the Niagara River away from the American side of the falls for several months. A completely dry Niagara Falls, never seen before or since, the six months in
July 1969 when U.S. Engineers set about restructuring the American side of the twin landmark.
Mountain of rubble: This set of photos only recently came to light when
Russ Glasson found them in a shoebox in his in-laws' Connecticut garage.
Their plan was to remove the large amount of loose rock from the base of the waterfall,
an idea which they eventually abandoned due to expense in November of that year.
During the interim, they studied the riverbed and mechanically bolted and strengthened
a number of faults to delay the gradual erosion of the American Falls. The team, made up of U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, blew up their temporary dam
in November, 1969 and six million cubic feet of water once again thundered over the falls' sides every minute.
Now, after lying unseen for more than four decades, a set of images showing the eerie calm at the American Falls that year have been unearthed by a man
from Connecticut.
Plan: The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers studied the riverbed and mechanically bolted and
strengthened a number of faults to delay the gradual erosion of the American Falls .
Historical moment: In order to stop the Niagara River from running over the American Falls,
engineers constructed a dam consisting of 27,800 tons of rock, stopping the water for the first time ever.
Russ Glasson recently stumbled across the pictures, which were taken by his in-laws and
had been left in an old shoebox in their garage for over four decades. Mr. Glasson said, 'My in-laws took these pictures during the six months through June to November,
when the Army was working to improve the health of the American Falls .'
Two rockslides from the plate of the falls in 1931 and 1954, had caused a large amount of rock to be collected at the base.
In 1965, reporters at a local newspaper, Niagara Falls Gazette, speculated that the American Falls
would eventually cease to flow and stop altogether if the rocks were not removed.
Four years later, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers were charged with de-watering the falls
to clean the river bed and to remove loose rock at the bottom of the falls.
Gradual deterioration: Two rockslides from the plate of the falls in 1931 and 1954
had caused a large amount of rock to be collected at the base
Eerie calm: The temporary dam can be seen in the top-right of this photograph.
Thunderous: The American Falls as they normally appear,
with millions of gallons of water hurtling over the edge every minute.
To achieve this the army had to build a 600ft dam across the Niagara River,
which meant that 60,000 gallons of water that flowed every second was diverted over the larger Horseshoe Falls, which flow entirely on the Canadian side of the border.
The dam itself consisted of 27,800 tons of rock and then on June 12 1969,
after flowing continuously for a long, long time, the American Falls stopped.
Over the course of the next six months thousands of visitors flocked to the falls to witness the historic occasion.
Once the engineers had removed some of the collected rocks from the falls base and
made geological testing to make safe the rest, the falls
were re-watered on November 25 in front of 2,650 onlookers.
Tourist hotspot: The Maid Of The Mist cruise boat journeys near to the Canadian Falls
