Taughannock Falls

Taughannock Falls is the main waterfall of Taughannock Falls State Park, in the town of Ulysses in Tompkins County, northwest of Ithaca near Trumansburg. Its 215-foot drop makes it 33 feet taller than Niagara Falls. The creek runs through a long gorge with cliffs up to 400 feet high.

The falls and gorge form a hanging valley, where the stream-carved valley of Taughannock Creek meets the deeper glacier-carved valley that holds Cayuga Lake. The gorge keeps retreating from the lake as the soft shale at the base of the falls wears away, and freeze and thaw cycles sometimes break off large sections of rock. Two more waterfalls lie along the creek inside the park: a Lower Falls of about 20 feet and an Upper Falls of about 100 feet.

The area was home to the Cayuga people before they were displaced during the Clinton-Sullivan Campaign after the American Revolutionary War. In the early 19th century the creek powered mills and a gun factory. Later, steamboats, railroads and Victorian hotels were built to serve visitors who came to see the falls. In 1850 J. S. Halsey built a hotel at the overlook; today the visitor center and parking lot stand on its site. By 1925 the hotels were failing, and New York State began buying land for a park.

A later hotel owner liked publicity. In 1874 he hired an acrobat to cross a tightrope 1,200 feet long stretched 350 feet above the creek. On July 2, 1879, workmen widening a nearby road uncovered what looked like the petrified body of a seven-foot man. More than 5,000 people paid to see the “giant” before it was revealed as a hoax, inspired by the Cardiff Giant of 1869. A replica was built in 2019 for the Tompkins Center for History & Culture.