While other founding fathers dreamed of yeoman farmers, Hamilton dreamed of factories. He believed America's future demanded manufacturing -- goods produced at home rather than imported from Europe. The Great Falls offered exactly what he needed: massive, reliable water power within striking distance of New York markets. In 1791, as Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton helped found the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures, a state-chartered corporation he called his 'national manufactory.' He commissioned Pierre Charles L'Enfant -- the same engineer who had designed the layout of Washington, D.C. -- to build a system of canals called raceways that would channel the river's power to mills throughout the new town. The town was named Paterson, after New Jersey Governor William Paterson, who had championed the venture. In 1792, David Godwin built the first water-powered cotton spinning mill in New Jersey and the first wooden dam on the falls.

The industries that grew beside the falls read like a catalog of American invention. The Rogers Locomotive Works opened in 1832, building the engines that would push railroads across the continent. Samuel Colt established his manufacturing company here in 1837, perfecting the revolver that became synonymous with the American frontier. In 1812, the site hosted New Jersey's first continuous roll paper mill. In 1898, John Holland built the USS Holland, the Navy's first commissioned submarine, along the Passaic. By 1900, Paterson had earned the title 'Silk City,' producing more silk than anywhere else in America. The falls powered it all, water flowing through raceways to hundreds of mills, the oldest surviving structure being the Phoenix Mill, built in 1813.

The same water that powered industry attracted waves of immigrants from Europe, many arriving without English, all arriving without leverage. Workers were exploited from the start. The conditions in Paterson's mills -- long hours, low wages, dangerous machinery -- made the city a crucible for American labor organizing. The 1913 Paterson silk strike brought the conflict into national focus, as immigrant workers walked off the job demanding better conditions. The strike failed, but the labor movements that grew from Paterson's factory floors helped reshape American working life. William Carlos Williams captured the city's turbulent history in his five-volume philosophical poem 'Paterson,' with the falls as its central metaphor -- water falling, always falling, indifferent to the human drama swirling around it.

Silk production moved south where labor was cheaper. The mills closed. The raceways went dry. The SUM society that Hamilton had founded operated until 1945, then sold its charter and property to the city. By the mid-20th century, Paterson was a study in industrial decline. But the falls kept falling. In 1967, the Great Falls and nearby Garret Mountain earned designation as a National Natural Landmark, recognizing how jointed basaltic lava flow had shaped the geology during the Mesozoic era. The surrounding neighborhood became a National Historic Landmark District in 1976. In 1971, concerned residents formed the Great Falls Preservation and Development Corporation. Then in 2009, President Obama signed legislation creating the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park, transferring the land to the National Park Service by 2011.

Today the Great Falls draws a record 177,000 visitors annually, as tallied in 2016. The falls are viewable from Haines Overlook Park on the south and Mary Ellen Kramer Park on the north, with a footbridge over the gorge -- historically the eighth to span this chasm -- serving as a dramatic outlook point. A visitor center at the corner of Spruce and McBride avenues interprets the industrial and cultural history of the city. The hydroelectric plant still operates, its three Kaplan turbines generating 10.95 megawatts of power. The falls even made it to television: they appeared in the pilot of HBO's 'The Sopranos' and in Jim Jarmusch's 2016 film 'Paterson,' inspired by Williams' poem. Hamilton's national manufactory is gone, but the water that powered it still drops 77 feet over ancient basalt, as it has for thirteen thousand years.