Letchworth State Park was just named the Best State Park in the nation in the 2025 USA Today 10BEST Readers’ Choice awards! It’s not the first time, either! The park also topped the list in 2015. Letchworth State Park is roughly 17 miles long, following the course of the Genesee River as it flows north through a deep gorge and over several large waterfalls. There are 3 large waterfalls within the park. The largest, Middle Falls, is 107 feet tall! The rock walls of the gorge soar 600 feet in some places, giving the park the nickname “Grand Canyon of the East”.
The park is named after industrialist William Pryor Letchworth, who purchased an initial 190 acres of land in 1859 and started work on his Glen Iris Estate. He worked with a famous landscape artist, William Webster, to design winding paths and roadways, rustic bridges, glistening lakes, and a sparkling fountain. Letchworth reportedly spent $500,000 improving the land. In the following years, he added to his landholdings in the area. In 1906, Letchworth donated the Glen Iris and the surrounding 1,000 acres to New York State as a public park, intending to keep commercial businesses from damaging the fragile nature of the gorge and surrounding woodlands. Letchworth lived out the remainder of his life at the Glen Iris, dying there on December 1, 1910.
Last year, attendance at the park hit a major milestone as it exceeded 1 million visitors for the first time. That compares with just over 975,000 in 2023. Learn more in the audio below.