For a period of time in 1969, no water fell over Niagara Falls. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had built a massive dam further upstream to divert the flow exclusively to the Canadian side in order to remove loose rock and strengthen faults on the American side. It was predicted that, given time, changes in how the water flowed endangered the U.S. side altogether. As a result, the goal was to promote conservation of the falls by reducing the amount of erosion the falls were sustaining. Although the temporary dam was dynamited in November of 1969, restoring the original flow, there were a few months where engineers, trucks, and heavy machinery moved over the bare riverbed instead of water.

Although the event was documented somewhat, there are only a limited number photographs of the occasion in existence. Last year, however, Russ Glasson of Connecticut found a bunch of 35mm slides taken by his in-laws.

He was surprised to find some of these slides were of Niagara Falls during this brief period of time. Russ Glasson, an avid photographer himself, took photos of these slides (click here) and posted them on his Flickr account. As can be expected, Russ has become somewhat of a celebrity for bringing these unique recordings of the falls to light. He has appeared on CNN, among other stations, and had the story of his remarkable find told by media outlets around the world.

This blog post has been provided by Nicolas D Alleva. Nicolas is the owner of Specialty Answering Service, an e-commerce call center for small internet based businesses.