This one has *everything* – waterfalls, fires, diamond stick pins, trans-oceanic gambling! A landmark hotel opened by an African-American caterer! And, to my great surprise, the discovery of what I believe are remnants of the last version of this long-lost resort. Today I'm telling the story of The Cataract House at Cohoes Falls. Find the full story at the link:
#cohoes #CohoesFalls #MohawkRiver #UpstateNY #UpstateNewYork #LocalHistory #histodons
My latest #LocalHistory post is essentially an excuse to look at a very, very pretty map – a 1910 Sanborn fire insurance map showing the confluence of the #MohawkRiver and #HudsonRiver at #cohoes
#UpstateNewYork #UpstateNY #CohoesNY #map #maps #historicalMaps
https://hoxsie.org/2025/08/10/the-cohoes-branches-of-the-mohawk-river/
Detail of the center section of Harmony Mill #3, Cohoes, New York. September 1991. Scanned from a 35mm Kodachrome slide.
Known as the "Mastodon Mill" for the mastodon skeleton unearthed during construction. The Harmony Mills complex was the largest textile mill in the world when it opened in 1872.
#OldPhotos #Kodachrome #Cohoes #NewYork #HarmonyMill #MastodonMill #The518
The discovery of the #Cohoes #Mastodon in 1866 caused some to call it a humbug, which was saying something in those days. Ballston Spa's William Bradley claimed it nothing more than a circus elephant that had died in the road and that he had helped bury. His story made no sense, but that didn't keep it from spreading. That "elephant" has since been shown to have died 11,000 years ago, which would mean Mr. Bradley had a remarkable lifespan.
https://hoxsie.org/2015/10/21/mous-i-do-not-believe-they-exist/
It made a triumphant return to the entry hall of the “new” museum in 1998, but it was soon found conditions there weren’t optimal for 11,000-year-old bones, and it was put into a back hall of the museum where it is displayed today.
I got yer #mastodon right here, pal: the OG mastodon where I'm from, which is the Cohoes Mastodon. This guy fell into a pothole at the end of the last ice age, say 13,000 years ago, and remained there until 1866, when workers building the Harmony Mills complex in the busy textile city discovered his bones very near the Cohoes Falls.
#cohoes #cohoesmastodon #cohoesny #iceage #newyorkstatemuseum
Carl Johnson
Sam Luyk
Brad Mohr