[1] The land for the hotel near what is now Old Main Street and Buffalo Avenue between Red Coach Inn and Niagara Falls State Park was originally owned by Judge Samuel DeVeaux.

[7] The hotel, which by then had occupied an entire city block was across the street from Red Coach Inn,[8] was destroyed by fire in 1945.

The Cataract House employed an entirely African-American wait staff, who helped many enslaved people to freedom in Canada.

Black hotel staff would privately engage the enslaved people and offer to take them to freedom in Canada, if they could be ready quickly.

Those who chose the daring escape would be given the route from a side door, along just a few city blocks, to a steep, slippery staircase down to the gorge below of the falls.