[5] The region surrounding Taughannock Falls State Park was home to the Cayuga people prior to their displacement from the area during the Clinton-Sullivan Campaign following the American Revolutionary War.

[6] During the second half of the nineteenth century, steamboats, railroads and Victorian hotels were built in the region to serve tourists who traveled to view the falls.

By 1925 the hotels were failing due to a decline in tourism, and New York State began acquiring land to form a park.

[8] On July 2, 1879, workmen widening a carriage road near the Taughannock House Hotel uncovered what appeared to be the petrified body of a seven-foot-tall man.

[10][11] Although the original giant has been damaged and lost,[12] a replica was constructed for the Tompkins Center for History & Culture by local artists in 2019.

[13][14] An earlier publicity stunt masterminded by Thompson in 1874 involved hiring Canadian acrobat "Professor Jenkins" to cross a 1,200-foot-long tightrope suspended 350 feet above the creek.

One translation suggests that the name is derived from a combination of Iroquois and Algonquin terms[20] meaning "great fall in the woods".

Annual freeze and thaw cycles also act upon small faults in the rock, causing large sections to occasionally break away, further expanding the gorge.

[27] The gorge supports a "Shale Cliff and Talus" community of plants, including three regionally rare species classified as threatened in New York State: Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris), birds-eye primrose (Primula mistassinica) and yellow mountain saxifrage (Saxifraga aizoides).