Turn Off the Lights [by Paul Gromosiak]

The following article appeared in the Niagara Falls Gazette on Monday, June 1, 1931.

Artificial Lighting of Falls Condemned at Park Conference

Dispatches from St. Louis indicate that the 11th annual meeting of the National Conference of State Parks, held in the city last week, a resolution was adopted condemning the artificial lighting of Niagara Falls as ‘gilding the lily.’ The consensus of opinion at the meeting was, the dispatches say, that the members present agreed with the recent opinion delivered by Prince Kikuko, of Japan, that the lighting adds nothing to the Falls.”

Before the Falls were artificially illuminated for the first time, in 1860, the Falls could only be seen on the night of a full moon or during a thunderstorm.