Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park
National Historical Park · Paterson, New Jersey
A seventy-seven-foot waterfall in the middle of a working post-industrial city, and BY VOLUME ONE OF THE LARGEST WATERFALLS EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI AFTER NIAGARA. Alexander Hamilton saw it in 1778 and came back to build America's first planned industrial city on it: the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures dug a three-tiered raceway system to drive the mills, and Paterson went on to make locomotives, Colt revolvers, aircraft engines and most of the silk in the United States. IT BECAME A NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK IN 2011, which makes it one of the newest units in the system, and the falls are free.
72 McBride Avenue Extension, Paterson, New Jersey, 07501, United States
FREE, with free but limited parking at the park lot. Open daylight hours; the visitor centre and ranger programming keep shorter daytime hours and federal holiday closures apply. THE FLOW VARIES ENORMOUSLY AND DECIDES THE VISIT — come 24 to 48 hours after heavy rain or during spring snowmelt for full volume; a dry late summer reduces the falls substantially. Winter ice makes walkways treacherous. NO SWIMMING, WADING OR WATER ACCESS ANYWHERE, and there is no boat launch. Designated a National Historical Park in 2011 and still being built out, so facilities are thinner than at a mature park.
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