From the Little Falls Historical Society Archives
The Little Falls Evening Times
Tuesday, September 30, 1938

MOTORCADE TO REVEAL SCENIC ATTRACTIONS OF NEW GORGE VIEW HIGHWAY

Affords Fine View of Little Falls Gorge

Residents of This City and Visitors Invited to Participate ▬ Deep Rock Cuts and Splendid Scenery From Gorge Rim Will Claim Attention ▬ Commanding View of Mohawk Valley at Its Narrowest Point, Where Great Arteries of Rail, Highway and Water Transportation Are Crowded Between the Walls of the True “Gateway of the West.”

Hundreds of people will want to go riding tomorrow, and they all will have the same objective, an auto trip over the new Gorge View highway, which will be opened to traffic at 3:30 in the afternoon. The motorcade that has been arranged as one of the chief features of the civic celebration will provide an opportunity for all who desire to do so to make the trip of inspection over the road, and the committees in charge of the observance cordially invite the general public, including out-of-town friends, to join the motorcade and be among those who, years later, will be able to say that they rode over the scenic highway on the day it was opened.

The route of the new highway is familiar to many local people who have enjoyed hiking over it for many months past. Those who have not had this experience, however, and will be making the trip tomorrow for the first time, are in for a pleasant surprise, for the road is one of the finest ever constructed in this section, and its scenic attractions are outstanding. It has four lines of concrete, two for eastbound traffic, and two for westbound traffic, with an “island” of macadam separating them, thus eliminating any danger of head-on collisions. The road will be officially opened when Captain Brandt, the state commissioner of highways, cuts the ribbons at the western end, where the new road meets East Main Street. The motorcade will then move on the highway, swinging up the slight grade that carries the road thro the deep rock cut east of Petrie Street, and on the high rock plateau on the north rim of the Little Falls gorge, from which a magnificent spectacle of valley scenery greets the eye. No more picturesque location could have been chosen , for here the beautiful Mohawk valley slopes to its narrowest point, where the pass between the sheer cliffs that rise on each side of the river forms the true “gateway to the west,” thro which countless thousands of travelers have passed since the days when the red men moved stealthily along their trails and the pioneers pushed their way into the wilderness.

Crowded through the narrow pass are great highway, rail, and transportation systems represented by Route 5, the New York Central, and the Mohawk River and barge canal. In addition, the limited space between the walls of the gorge accommodates the West Shore railroad and the Dolgeville branch of the Central. Probably, nowhere else in the world do such important arteries of transportation elbow each other thro so narrow a gateway. From the highway’s heights, there are arresting views of the gorge, the river, the railroad and big Lock 17 on the barge canal.

Contributed by the Little Falls Historical Society.