"Every American bride is taken here," reported Oscar Wilde after visiting Niagara Falls in 1882. "This waterfall," he added, "must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest disappointments in American married life."
Wilde was more wry than right.* Niagara may rank 83rd on the list of the world's 100 highest cataracts, but only two (Guaira Falls on the Brazil-Paraguay border, and Khone Falls in Laos) cascade vaster quantities of water. Since the area's first hotel opened on the Canadian side of the Niagara River 148 years ago, the falls have proved...
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