Clifton Hill

[NiagaraFalls]

Clifton Hill is the major tourist promenade in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The street, close in proximity to Niagara Falls and the Niagara River, leads from River Road on the Niagara Parkway to intersect with Victoria Avenue. The street contains a number of gift shops, wax museums, haunted houses, restaurants, hotels and themed attractions. For visitors, particularly families and teenagers, it is a major amusement area and centre for night life.

The popular Clifton Hill (Niagara Falls) on the Canadian side lite up at night Over the years the various properties on the hill have been bought, sold and renamed frequently.

Prominent attractions on the street include Ripley's Believe It or Not! and 4D Moving Theatre, the Guinness World Records Museum and the nearby Louis Tussaud's Waxworks. Tussaud's has long been a staple of the area, and a model of tight-rope walker Charles Blondin that formerly hung above Clifton Hill is a common landmark. The Waxworks opened in 1949, the first of many wax museums in the area. Its location on the Hill closed in September of 2000 when its lease ran out, and it has since reopened just above the hill on Victoria Avenue.


The land where Clifton Hill now occupies was acquired by the Phillip Bender family in 1782 as part of a United Empire Loyalist land grant. In 1832 the property was purchased by British Army officer Captain Ogden Creighton, a half-pay officer who had served in the 70th and 81st Regiments and had served in the Far East. Creighton laid out streets and building lots on the land, naming the future settlement Clifton, presumably after Clifton on the gorge of the River Avon in Bristol, England. The officer built his residence, Clifton Cottage, on the edge of a high bank facing the American Falls (where the present-day Quality Inn is located).

Creighton was involved in suppressing the uprising of the Rebellion of 1837. Following a clash between William Lyon Mackenzie and an Upper Canada government militia north of Toronto, the rebel leader took his forces to Navy Island on the Niagara River to form a provisional government. In mid-January 1838 Mackenzie and his followers evacuated the island. At the time Clifton Cottage became the headquarters for a military detachment assigned to guard the border ferry. The Creighton family left the Niagara area in the early 1840s, moving to Toronto and later Brantford, Ontario. Captain Creighton died around 1850.


The street now called Clifton Hill was then Ferry Road, named due to its proximity to the rowboat transportation system that ferried people across the Niagara River between Canada and the USA prior to the completion of the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge. Ferry Road provided access to the Niagara Gorge where the boats docked.

In 1833 the first Clifton Hotel was built at the base of the street by Harmanus Crysler. Following in 1842, financier Samuel Zimmerman created a 52 acre estate property along the south side of the road. Dubbed Clifton Place, Zimmerman planned to create many gardens, large fountains and a mansion that was to be his residence. The estate occupied the entire south side of what is now Clifton Hill, bounded by the Niagara River, Murray Hill and Ferry Road (Victoria Avenue). Among the buildings constructed were four large gatehouses (the last was completed in 1856) and a $18,000 stable constructed of imported English yellow brick. Zimmerman was killed on March 12th, 1857 in the Desjardins Canal railway accident. He only lived to see the foundation for his $175,000 "Clifton Place" mansion built.

The Zimmerman estate was taken over by the Bank of Upper Canada, which went bankrupt in 1866. The estate was put up for sale and purchased by US senator John T. Bush of Buffalo, New York for 25 cents on the dollar. Bush acquired Clifton House, the adjoining properties, and went on to complete the lavish Clifton Place mansion. Bush and his family lived in the building for the next 50 years, with his daughter Josephine residing there until 1927. In 1928 the Bush estate was sold to Harry Oakes of Welland Securities.

The 1920s saw considerable growth in the area as a tourist destination. In 1925 Howard Fox opened the Foxhead Inn on Clifton Hill at Falls Avenue. On the north side of the hill the Niagara Falls Tourist Camp was opened by Charles Burland. Earl McIntosh opened two campgrounds, the Clifton Touring Camp on the south side of the street and Clifton Camp to the north. Reinhart's Riverhurst Inn was built between the Niagara Falls Tourist Camp and the Foxhead Inn.

In the 1950s the land on the south side of the street was offered to the US Government as a site for a new American Consulate however the offer was never acted upon and the land was later sold.

Clifton hill was so much fun for our children, there was so much for the young ones to do, The haunted houses and the games were so exciting for them it was just waht the children needed after our hotel experience. The kids could have fun and be kids.

The rides and wax museums were fun and exciting and a little expensive but we were able to find discount coupon booklets at the embassy suites when we had dinner one night at fridays restaurant and these saved us alot of money.

Allison O'Grady
Toledo Ohio

the canada side of niagara falls is the best in the universe

I love each piece of Niagara Falls. I adore Niagara On The Lake!
I returned once and I'll return more times for sure. Big hug to you all canadians from Brasil. (jmaria120@itelefonica.com.br)

chifton hill is the best place on earth