And thus Love’s ambitions evaporated almost overnight. The fluctuations of the economy scared off the investors the discovery of how electricity could be efficiently transmitted over long distances made Love’s canal seem unnecessary and local politicians prohibited the diversion of the rivers’ water altogether. Then Love’s ideas were quashed fairly quickly by a combination of factors. The idea of a new city “among the greatest manufacturing cities in the United States” drew many supporters and investors the following year saw construction begin on the canal. He was a driven and charismatic man, who filled his brochures with wild promises and other hyperbole. By the 1970s, the Love Canal became the site of one of the worst environmental disasters in American history.īack in 1892, it seemed inconceivable that Love’s plans would fall apart so dramatically. After the pit was filled with waste, a neighborhood was built directly on top of it. After a few decades, this pit was purchased by the City of Niagara Falls, which had decided that it would make an ideal location for a needed chemical-dumping site.
The one part of Love’s city that had been built was a kilometer-long pit that would have been a part of the canal. Within a year, however, Love’s plans failed, and would quickly have been forgotten if it weren’t for one problem. He planned to power the city using hydroelectric dams on a new 11-kilometer canal between the upper and lower Niagara Rivers. Thousands of acres would become “the most extensive and beautiful in the world”. His city would be home to enviable industry, and housing for more than a million people. The landowner and entrepreneur envisioned the creation of an enormous utopian metropolis. Love came to 1890s Niagara Falls, New York, with hugely ambitious plans. Please do not distribute without written permission from Damn Interesting.
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