About Upper Falls of the Genesee River (Letchworth)
The Upper Falls of the Genesee River was one of three major waterfalls on the Genesee River in Letchworth State Park. This waterfall was actually just a short distance upstream of the Middle Falls, and I guess we could’ve combined the two waterfall entries on this website. Instead, we felt like we had enough to say about this particular waterfall to warrant its own page.
As you can see from the photographs on this page, the distinguishing feature of this 40ft waterfall was the Portage High Bridge, which was really a railroad bridge. The bridge was said to have originally opened in 1852 as the highest wooden railroad bridge at the time at 234ft above the Upper Falls of the Genesee River spanning 850ft across the gorge. Of course the current bridge that we saw was made of iron as the original wooden one was said to have burned down in 1875 under “suspicious circumstances.” This rebuilt railroad bridge was definitely active and still in use as it was said to link Buffalo and Hornell courtesy of the Erie Railroad Company.
The walk from the car park that served both the Upper and Middle Falls was merely a couple of minutes uphill along a concrete path flanked by a lawn on one side and a concrete barricade on the other. There was a coin-op binocular here to perhaps get a closer look at the bridge as well as some possible bird life that might fly by here. The views of the falls (such as what you see at the top of this page) could be had all along the concrete walkway (even as far away as the car park itself), and the paved walkway continued to climb up along the gorge walls going by the Upper Falls probably up to the base of the Portage High Bridge where there was another car park up there.
It turned out that this waterfall (as well as the Middle Falls) could also be seen from a much different perspective. That alternate view was at the Inspiration Point (see directions below), which not only allowed us to see both waterfalls, but we were also able to appreciate the grandeur and depth of the Grand Canyon of the Genesee River, which we could see how it earned its moniker of the “Grand Canyon of the East”.
Since the falls flowed on the Genesee River, which was the major river system responsible for carving out this canyon, it was pretty obvious that the falls also flowed year-round. In fact, the photos you see from both the Summer and Autumn that we’re featuring on this page further attested to its consistent appearance.
By the way, I’ve seen some conflicting figures in the literature reporting the height of this waterfall to be 71ft. However, I think that might be a generous figure given our field observations.
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