Timeless Scenery vs. Changing Tourists: The Design History of Watkins Glen State Park

Abstract

Timeless Scenery vs. Changing TouristsThe Design History of Watkins Glen State Park Hans Klein-Hewett (bio) Watkins Glen State Park has maintained its status as a major tourist destination in New York State for over 150 years by creatively balancing and adapting the three drivers that attract tourists to scenic destinations: recreation, entertainment, and nature. This balancing act was completed by entrepreneurial managers who preserved the natural scenic value while adding and removing amenities to accommodate tourist expectations and desires. Although the experience inside the glen has not significantly changed since it opened in 1863, the spaces around the glen—much like the tourists visiting the park—have changed dramatically. Those spaces and their amenities, signage, and attractions evolved to conform the park to its users' expectation of a scenic destination. Initially, Watkins Glen was conceived as a place where sublime scenery was tempered by middle-class resort amenities. The site later evolved into a recreation-focused public park, a family-friendly vacation spot, a technological wonderland, and today, a multifaceted park to engage the masses. Each evolution aimed to attract and retain the changing tourists while maintaining the dramatic scenery inside the glen. This article is organized as a longitudinal study of Watkins Glen State Park from its opening in 1860 to its last major renovation in 2018. The article starts with a brief description of the park, then discusses the history of the site through phases of design, with contextual information provided for each phase to illuminate the driving factors behind the changes. The article concludes with an examination of how design efforts have balanced the competing demands for recreation, entertainment, and nature. A Brief Description of Watkins Glen State Park Located directly east of the Village of Watkins Glen, in New York State's Finger Lakes region (see Figure 1), Watkins Glen State Park is one of the most popular state-controlled scenic [End Page 259] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Map of New York State. Created by the author. destinations in the country.1 The park, celebrated for its mile-long narrow gorge and dramatic waterfalls, is the result of thousands of years of erosion, caused by Glen Creek, which runs from west to east into nearby Seneca Lake. Sitting on the accumulated alluvium from the gorge is the Village of Watkins Glen, which predates the opening of the glen by several decades.2 The main entrance to the park is on the east side, where it interfaces with the Village along Franklin Street. Most visitors walk up the gorge from the bottom via the Gorge Trail—the primary walkway through the glen—using winding paths, staircases, and bridges to see dozens of waterfalls and pools. The rock walls, made of a dark gray shale, are known for [End Page 260] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Map of the east side of Watkins Glen State Park in 2020. Created by the author. their strong horizontal striations. In contrast to the main gorge path, two hiking trails—the North and South Rim Trails—skirt the rim of the gorge, allowing an efficient way to return to the entrance or to navigate to other areas of the park (see Figure 2). Building the Vision What is now Watkins Glen State Park was first developed to be an upper-middle-class tourist destination that focused on experiencing nature and, more specifically, sublime scenery.3 The idea for the destination came from Morvalden Ells, a newspaper editor from Vermont. Prior to opening the site, the glen was a local curiosity only. Ells changed that on July 4, 1863, when he opened the site and called it Freer's Glen, named after George Freer, the property owner at the time.4 It got off to a good start, welcoming over ten thousand visitors in its first season despite the ongoing Civil War.5 While Ells managed the glen for only five years, he made three important improvements [End Page 261] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 3. Cavern Cascade, circa 1890. Courtesy of NY State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation; parks.ny.gov. to attract his preferred middle-class...