The incredible story of Annie Edson Taylor: the first person to successfully ride down the Niagara Falls in a barrel

On October 24, 1901, a 63-year-old widow and former schoolteacher climbed into a custom-made oak barrel, floated toward the roaring brink of Niagara Falls and plunged over the edge along with the gallons of water. What makes it worth remembering, though, was that she lived to tell the tale.

Who was first person to survive Niagara Falls in a barrel?

Her name was Annie Edson Taylor, and her astonishing drop made her the first person ever to survive such a feat. Born in Auburn, New York, in 1838, Taylor worked as a teacher and dance instructor but struggled financially by her early sixties. Seeking fame and fortune, she devised an audacious plan: to go over Niagara Falls inside a barrel. As you do.

The contraption, made of oak and iron and padded with a mattress, was tested days earlier when a cat – animal rights groups weren’t so prevalent a century ago – was sent over the falls and survived. Encouraging news for its human passenger.

On her 63rd birthday, Taylor climbed inside the barrel, the lid was sealed, and air was pumped in through a hose. Moments later, she was set adrift. Spectators on the Canadian shore watched in disbelief as the barrel disappeared into the mist of the Horseshoe Falls, plunging more than 160 feet into the churning water below. Twenty minutes later, it bobbed back to the surface. When rescuers pulled it ashore and pried it open, Taylor emerged shaken, bruised and with a small cut to her head... but alive.

What did Annie Edson Taylor say after the fall?

Her first words after the ordeal became legendary:

“If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat… I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon than make another trip over the Fall.”

Taylor’s gamble brought her brief fame but little fortune. Her manager absconded with the barrel, her lecture tours faltered, and she spent her later years posing for souvenir photographs near Niagara Falls, struggling to make ends meet.

When she died in 1921, Taylor was buried in the local Oakwood Cemetery, in a section now called “Stunter’s Rest.” Though her riches never came, her legacy as the Queen of the Mist endures, a symbol of human daring, determination and defiance in the face of nature’s fury. We remember her today.

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