Dean M. Chriss
Photography
Cayuga Falls, Autumn, Pennsylvania
(Click image to enlarge)
Cayuga is a dialect of the Seneca language spoken by he smallest tribe of the
Iroquois Confederacy, who are known as the Cayuga. It is also the name of one of
the smallest waterfalls in Pennsylvania's Ricketts Glen State Park. At a little
more than 13 feet (4 meters) high this waterfall is often overlooked among the
much larger ones in the area, though it is actually quite beautiful. R. Bruce
Ricketts gave all of the waterfalls in the park Iroquois names, or named them
after family members and friends.
R. Bruce Ricketts was the proprietor of a nearby hotel from 1873 to 1903.
The waterfalls drew people to the area and Ricketts' hotel, so he built a
trail system between the waterfalls that, with a few modifications, is still
used today. By the 1890s Ricketts owned or controlled over 80,000 acres
(32375 ha, 120 square miles) and made a fortune clear-cutting almost all of
that land. Fortunately about 2,000 acres (809 ha) of virgin forest in three
glens where the waterfalls are located were preserved, probably because the
area was difficult and expensive to access. After R. B. Ricketts death in
1918, his heirs began selling land to the state of Pennsylvania. When
efforts to make Ricketts Glen a national park in the 1930s were ended by the
Second World War and budget issues, Pennsylvania purchased the remaining
land in 1942 and opened Ricketts Glen State Park in 1944, just before the
war ended.