Niagara Falls walking tours available

The Niagara Falls Historic Preservation Society invites area residents to experience "The Power That Was Niagara Falls NY - A Walking Tour of Downtown." Continuing for the summer, the tours are offered Sundays and Wednesdays through Sept. 30.

"What Americans wouldn't give for an economic profile like this! Flourishing manufacturing activity, robust retail spending, population and job growth, huge investments in new housing, business ingenuity that had never been seen before. That was Niagara Falls, New York, from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century," the Preservation Society claimed.

Visitors are welcome for the 90-minute walking tour of downtown Niagara Falls, held twice a week. As part of "Powerful People, Powerful Places," they'll hear the stories of women and men, black and white, local and immigrant, who worked the mills, served the tourists, started new companies and built the houses that created the Falls' success.

Add the Underground Railroad to this panorama, and the story is thrilling, the Society added.

The tours begin at the Niagara USA Official Visitor Center (10 Rainbow Blvd.) at 3 p.m. Sundays and 6 p.m. Wednesdays. There, visitors will be met by a volunteer tour guide from the society and return to the Visitor Center at the end of the tour.

Cost is $10 per person, payable in cash to the society tour guide. Parking is available across from the Visitor Center. For more information, visit www.nfhps.org.