The Day Niagara Falls Ran Dry

In the predawn hours of March 29, 1848, an unusually hard winter on Lake Erie broke apart all at once. A sudden warm spell cracked the lake's thick ice, and strong easterly winds shoved the floes into the mouth of the Niagara River between Buffalo and Fort Erie, jamming them into a natural dam. With the river's main source cut off, the flow over both the Horseshoe and American Falls slowed to a trickle and then stopped outright. For roughly a day and a half, people walked out onto the exposed riverbed, some crossing on foot to Goat Island, and found muskets, bayonets, and timber left over from the War of 1812. The jam broke on its own on March 31, and the falls came roaring back by that evening.