361— Letchworth State Park and the Glen Iris Estate: Mapping 113 Years of Change from 1907 to 2020

The Portage Gorge located in Upstate New York is known as the “Grand Canyon of the East” with gorge heights over 183 meters (600 feet) and three major waterfalls. One man who took particular interest in the gorge was William Pryor Letchworth. Letchworth was an industrialist and philanthropist who began purchasing land near Middle Falls in 1859. The environment was greatly altered by intensive lumbering, milling, and farming, so Letchworth sought to restore the area’s natural beauty. Letchworth spent the next 50 years restoring the environment, purchasing land, and building his 1,000-acre Glen Iris Estate. Letchworth donated his estate to New York State in 1906 to protect the area. The land became Letchworth State Park in 1907, and it began transitioning into a state park after Letchworth’s death in 1910. The purpose of this study is to map Letchworth’s Glen Iris Estate in 1907 and the same area of the park in 2020 to compare the park’s features after 113 years of preservation. A quantitative analysis of features such as the length of roads, length of railroad tracks, acres of land cover types (forested and unforested), and number of buildings determined how the area has changed since 1907.