More than two centuries after the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures began developing Paterson’s waterpower system, the raceways remain one of the city’s most important surviving industrial resources.
The raceways no longer serve the factories in the way they did during Paterson’s industrial heyday. Instead, they survive as historic engineering structures that help explain how the Great Falls powered the development of the city.
Today, the raceway system is part of the historic landscape of Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park and the Great Falls/S.U.M. National Historic Landmark District. The National Park Service identifies the Upper, Middle and Lower Raceways, gatehouses, wheelhouses, spillways, outfalls and associated archaeological resources as an integrated historic system.
From Industrial Power to Historic Landmark
The raceways were originally working infrastructure.
Beginning in the 1790s, they diverted water from the Passaic River and delivered it to factories throughout Paterson’s industrial district. The system was expanded and modified over generations, eventually creating a three-level network consisting principally of the Upper, Middle and Lower Raceways.
By the twentieth century, steam and electricity had largely replaced direct waterpower for manufacturing.
The raceways nevertheless survived.
Their importance changed from providing mechanical energy to providing historical evidence of how Paterson became an industrial city.
The Upper Raceway Today
The Upper Raceway is among the most accessible portions of the historic system.
A portion has been rehabilitated, and a pedestrian path follows the raceway. The Upper Raceway Park provides visitors with an opportunity to walk alongside the historic channel and understand the relationship between the waterway and the surrounding industrial landscape.
The Upper Raceway follows the contour of the hillside before dropping toward the Middle Raceway. A historic spillway connects the two levels near the Ivanhoe Wheelhouse.
This makes the Upper Raceway particularly useful for interpreting the basic principle of Paterson’s waterpower system:
High water → controlled descent → mechanical power → lower raceway
The Middle and Lower Raceways
The Middle and Lower Raceways remain important surviving components of the historic system, although their present condition differs from the Upper Raceway.
The National Park Service reports that the middle and lower raceways are generally dry and do not have the same formal pedestrian infrastructure found alongside portions of the Upper Raceway.
Their importance, however, is not diminished by the absence of regular water flow.
They preserve evidence of the system’s original three-level design and its relationship to the factories that once depended upon it.
The Lower Raceway, constructed in 1807, represents one of the major stages in the expansion of Paterson’s waterpower network.
The Raceways and the Great Falls
The raceways must be understood together with the Great Falls and Passaic River.
The Falls provided the natural drop in elevation.
The raceways allowed engineers to control and distribute that energy.
The mills converted the energy into mechanical power.
The relationship can be summarized:
Passaic River
↓
Dam
↓
Upper Raceway
↓
Mill / Wheelhouse
↓
Middle Raceway
↓
Mill / Wheelhouse
↓
Lower Raceway
↓
Passaic River
This is why the National Park Service considers the raceway system particularly significant: it allows visitors to understand a historic hydropower system from its source through its transformation into industrial power.
Historic Wheelhouses Still Survive
Several structures associated with the raceway system survive.
One particularly important example is the Ivanhoe Mill Wheelhouse, located on the Upper Raceway.
The New Jersey Historic Preservation Office identifies it as the last surviving structure of the original Ivanhoe Paper Company complex. The building was converted to a hydroelectric plant after the S.U.M. acquired the site in 1914 and continued to be used for that purpose until 1946.
The wheelhouse demonstrates an important transition in Paterson’s history.
The technology changed from:
Water → Mechanical Power
to:
Water → Electricity
The Great Falls therefore continued to provide useful energy even after the traditional mill system had begun to disappear.
Waterpower Still Exists
The story of waterpower in Paterson did not end when the old mills stopped using the raceways.
The Great Falls continues to be associated with hydroelectric power generation.
The National Park Service notes that the Falls still provide power today, demonstrating the continuing importance of the Passaic River as an energy resource.
The modern technology is different from the nineteenth-century system, but the fundamental idea remains remarkably similar:
Use the elevation and movement of the Passaic River to produce useful energy.
A System That Is Still Being Preserved
The raceways face significant preservation challenges.
The National Park Service reports that conditions vary throughout the system. Many spillway and raceway features require continued preservation attention, while portions of the system experience problems involving debris, invasive vegetation, water management and deterioration.
Water itself presents a complicated preservation problem.
The raceways were designed to carry water, but uncontrolled water infiltration can damage adjacent historic structures.
Flooding also affects portions of the raceway system and surrounding historic landscape.
Preserving the raceways therefore requires balancing two objectives:
Protect the historic structure
while also
managing the water that originally made the structure useful.
The Raceway System as an Archaeological Resource
Not everything associated with the raceways remains visible.
Some portions have been altered, buried or incorporated into later development.
Archaeological evidence can reveal the location of former:
- raceway channels
- mill foundations
- wheel pits
- gates
- spillways
- tailraces
- industrial buildings
The National Park Service recognizes these archaeological resources as part of the overall Raceway System.
This means that a section of buried raceway can be just as historically important as one that remains visible.
The Raceways and Paterson’s Industrial Buildings
The raceways also remain important because many historic industrial buildings survive around them.
Buildings such as the Hamilton Mill retain physical relationships with the old waterpower infrastructure. New Jersey’s Historic Preservation Office notes the surviving stone-lined raceway channel associated with the Hamilton Mill complex.
Other surviving industrial resources help tell the story of the industries that once depended upon the system.
Together, the raceways and mills form an interconnected historic landscape.
The Raceways as an Outdoor Classroom
Today, the raceways offer something that few modern industrial sites can provide: visitors can actually walk beside the infrastructure that once powered the factories.
A visitor can see:
The river
↓
The Falls
↓
The raceway
↓
The mill
↓
The wheelhouse
↓
The industrial district
This makes Paterson’s industrial history unusually tangible.
The National Park Service describes the raceway system as an outstanding opportunity to understand how Paterson’s hydropower system functioned and how it contributed to the city’s industrial development.
The Raceway System and PatersonHistory.com
For PatersonHistory.com, the present-day raceway system provides an opportunity to connect the historical articles in this series.
A visitor could move through the website in the same direction that the water once traveled:
1. The Passaic River
The natural source of the power.
2. The Great Falls
The 77-foot drop that created the opportunity.
3. The Dam
The structure that controlled the river.
4. The Upper Raceway
The beginning of the industrial water-distribution system.
5. The Middle Raceway
The second level of the system.
6. The Lower Raceway
The final major level.
7. Wheelhouses
Where waterpower became mechanical energy.
8. The Mills
Where mechanical energy became manufactured products.
9. Paterson’s Industries
Silk, locomotives, firearms, machinery, textiles and more.
10. The Raceways Today
The surviving physical evidence.
A Living Historic Landscape
The raceways are not frozen in the past.
The surrounding city continues to change.
Historic mills are being rehabilitated for new uses. The Great Falls continues to attract visitors. The National Park Service continues to interpret the industrial landscape, while preservation agencies and the City of Paterson work to protect historic structures. Recent rehabilitation work at the Hamilton Mill demonstrates how historic industrial buildings can receive new uses while retaining their connection to the raceway system.
The raceways therefore represent both Paterson’s industrial past and its continuing preservation story.
Why the Raceways Matter
The raceways explain something fundamental about Paterson:
The city was built around power.
The location of the factories was influenced by the water.
The water influenced the streets and industrial properties.
The factories attracted workers.
Workers created neighborhoods and communities.
Those industries eventually made Paterson famous throughout the world.
The raceways were the infrastructure connecting all of these developments.
The Raceway System Today
Today, the raceways are quieter than they were during Paterson’s industrial heyday.
The waterwheels are largely gone.
The belts and shafts have stopped turning.
The factories no longer depend upon the channels for their daily power.
But the raceways remain.
They preserve the engineering decisions made more than two centuries ago and allow us to understand how the Great Falls became the engine of an American industrial city.
The raceways once carried water to the mills.
Today, they carry history.
Their preservation ensures that future generations can still follow the path of the water—from the Passaic River and Great Falls to the factories that helped build Paterson.