This  view from the lower Niagara River is looking south toward Niagara University. Before the University was built, the Chasm Tower (upper center of print) was a wooden viewing platform that  towered over the gorge at the current location of the New York Power Authority. Details on who built the Chasm Tower have been lost over time, but its views were written about in detail in Hackstaff’s New Guide Book of Niagara Falls, 1853, by George H. Hackstaff.

“This Tower, erected in the summer of 1849, for the sole purpose of extending the view over one of the most interesting prospects in the world, is built upon a knole of land, called ‘Mont Eagle.’ It stands close to the perpendicular bank of the Niagara river, 100 rods north of the Devil’s Hole. The top of the Tower to which the spectator ascends by flights of easy and  convenient stairs, is about 400 feet from the waters edge.“ The author continues on to describe, in great detail, twenty-one  important historic views from the tower and gorge.