Great Falls, a seventy-seven-foot waterfall on the Passaic River in Paterson, is both a major natural landmark and a foundation of American industrial history. Formed about 13,000 years ago as glacial retreat redirected the river, the site was used by Lenape people before Dutch settlement began in the 1690s. Its national importance grew after Alexander Hamilton chose it for the country’s first planned industrial city and helped launch the manufacturing system that powered Paterson’s mills. Through the nineteenth century, the falls drove major industries and later became closely linked to labor activism, especially the 1913 silk strike. Today the falls remain a protected historic, cultural, and working power site.

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain