Existing comment:
Green Island:
The Porter brothers purchased this once-forested, 1.5-acre island along with Goat Island in 1816. Within ten years, they had constructed a paper mill here and established the Niagara Falls Paper Manufacturing Company. Over the next half century, the mill changed hands several times, burned, and was rebuild and enlarged. After the Niagara Reservation State Park was established in 1885, the buildings on this island were demolished.
The island was once called Bath Island for the bathhouse, which opened here in 1821. This establishment offered "showering baths, as well as warm and cold baths from the rushing waters of the rapids." The baths became world-famous, and many people believed the limestone minerals in the water would cure their physical ailments. Bath Island was renamed Green Island in 188 in honor of Andrew H. Green, a president and a member of the Board of Commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara. |