Tunnel Town

The age of electricity in Niagara Falls, New York ignited a new era of technology and futuristic ideas for home, business, and industry. As Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla competed to be the first to use the legendary waterfall to generate hydroelectricity, Niagara Falls was being hailed as the future “Electrical Metropolis of the World.” With the flip of a switch, the growing village was on the verge of immediate industrialization and urbanization.

But there was a problem. The Niagara River was in the way. The solution was to build a mile-long tunnel under the village, stretching from the Adams Power Plant to land below the Falls. The tunnel would divert water from the river and generate electricity at the power plant. 

The tunnel was built from 1890 to 1893 by mostly immigrant laborers. African Americans, however, played a key role by building major sections of the tunnel. Italian masons laid 600,000 bricks a day in tunnel walls. 

Laborers lived in a shanty town that newspapers referred to as Tunnel Town. They worked long hours for low wages. Italian immigrants were forced into this situation because job notices in Niagara Falls routinely added that Italians need not apply. Other ethnic groups also faced prejudice and discrimination. 

One laborer who worked on the American and Canadian sides of Niagara Falls recalled how black workers like himself “were greeted in Canada with a dignified hello, while people in Niagara Falls, New York ran in their houses and slammed doors.” 

Indeed, the public perception of Tunnel Town grew increasingly negative due to concerns about sanitation, public health, crime, and violence. As a result, Tunnel Town was eventually relocated though its name and reputation followed. 

Newspapers stereotyped the immigrants to promote reform agendas influenced by the 1901 assassination of President McKinley 25 miles away in Buffalo. Locals expressed fears about illegal immigration and ‘foreign’ ideas. To make matters worse, 29 inhabitants of Tunnel Town died from typhoid in 1902.

The rising number of saloons was another concern, so much so that one reformer proposed an education department that would teach women how to cook so their husbands wouldn’t be tempted from their homes by the food that “shrewd saloon keepers” made. 

Despite these hardships, immigrant groups became Americans and persevered through the formation of their own churches, schools, and communities. Likewise, a thriving black community was also evident in Niagara Falls in the decades that followed completion of the tunnel. 

From 1880 to 1930, Tunnel Town grew as more immigrants came to Niagara Falls. Overall, around 28 different ethnic groups lived in Tunnel Town, with the majority from Italy, Poland, and Russia.

Today, Tunnel Town is known as the East Side of Niagara Falls and it remains an ethnically diverse neighborhood.

Hope L. Russell, Ph.D.