Dean M. Chriss
Photography
Ozone Falls, Autumn, Pennsylvania
(Click image to enlarge)
The steep 60 foot (18.3 meter) high cascade of Ozone Falls is the highest in
Glen Leigh and the second highest waterfall in Pennsylvania's Ricketts Glen
State Park.
The park is named for R. Bruce Ricketts, 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 containing the waterfalls were preserved, probably because
logging the steep terrain was too difficult and expensive. 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.