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One of the Lockport Parks Pages featured at
www.Lockport-NY.com
THE PICTURE OF LOCKPORT
"Take only pictures..
Leave only footprints"
"May the joy in
Your heart always match
The beauty found in
This Violet Patch"
The Rollin T. Grant Gulf Wilderness Park
is a true, unspoiled wilderness. There are trails but little other accomadation of
the modern life. The location is on the south side of West Jackson Street (near the
5900 block) where there is limited auto parking and a defined entry shown above. In
the view on the right, a sign shows the extent of park properties. On the left
is a millstone originally used in a 19th Century paper mill on the north side of
the Erie Barge Canal in Lockport (at the present location of Upson Park). It was
transported to this site in 1972 with a plaque attached to it to recognize the donation of
seven acres at the park entry by the family of Josephine McCollum Carveth. The
poem on the plaque reminds us to look here for English violets in early to mid April.
The Gulf Wilderness Park is a wooded ravine which was first cut out by a once raging river whose waters came from glacial melt during a warming cycle ten to fifthteen thousand years ago. The glacier was formed during the latest of four glacial periods that covered much of North America and New York State two to three million years ago with ice sheets a mile or so thick.
The melting ice left vast bodies of water in the lowland. Glacial Lake Iroquois, the larger predecessor of Lake Ontario, was one. Its beaches are today represented by the plateau to the north of the escarpment here at Lockport. In fact, U.S. Route 104 is built on the old beach ridge.
Glacial Lake Tonawanda lay to the south of Lockport between the Niagara Escarpment (goes through and divides Lockport) and the Onondaga Escarpment (which lies generally along Route 5 from the Buffalo city line through Amherst and Clarence ---most dramatically noticed on Transit Road, heading north just past today's Eastern Hills Mall). The level plain between Lockport and Buffalo represents the bottom of Lake Tonawanda, with Tonawanda Creek being the remnant of the deepest part. Bear Ridge and Beach Ridge Roads were built along northerly dunes of the old lake.
Lake Tonawanda drained north into Lake Iroquois through outlet streams whose spillways eroded gorges through dolostone, shale, limestone, and sandstone strata. The largest spillway was at Lewiston on the Niagara River (which eventually migrated south, developing into Niagara Falls). The second-largest spillway was here at Lockport and the Gulf Revine is the exact location of this spillway. The third largest spillway out of the lake was near the present Cold Springs Road and the Lockport Town & Country Club golf course. There were lesser spillways to the east, including Gasport's Royalton Ravine and yet another just east of Medina. There was a slight west tilt to which favored more lake water going to the west.
As the level of Glacial Lake Tonawanda fell, flow of the outlets ceased except for local drainage and the Niagara River at Niagara Falls. With a greater initial flow the spillway at Lewiston-Niagara Falls cut more rapidly down the caprock than falls at Lockport and points east. Finally when Lake Tonawanda fell below the level of the spillways at Lockport and points east, the falls here just dried up. Niagara Falls became the only outlet for the remains of Lake Tonawanda and for the output of the other Great Lakes .
The Alabama and Oak Orchard Swamps to the east and south of Lockport, and the overflowing ditches and creeks along roads in Amherst and Tonawanda during spring thaws are evidence that "old Lake Tonawanda" may not be completely drained yet. The West Branch of 18-Mile Creek, flowing through our Gulf Park, is all that remains of an ancient torrential stream.
Gulf Wilderness Park is an excellent location to study rock and formations and search for fossils.
Proof of the age of rock strata in Gulf Wilderness Park is found in the
red sandstone surfaces of the Grimsby sandstone, where structures like intertwined ropes
("Arthrophycus") represent the fossil remains of worm burrows from the Silurian
Period of about 430 million years ago. Fossils are also found in other rock lawyers
in this park. One can look for crinoids, brachiopods, and corals. See
displays in the Lockport Cyber Museum of Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils.
Just east of the park property, along West Jackson Street, you can encounter an excellent display or two major rock formations being cut through in this area and notice the different weathering effect on each. The top layer seen to the left here is the "Medina group" of sandstone while layers of (red) shale below it are of the Queenston group. As the shale begins to crumble it takes a course of turning into stone debris and eventually clay. The results can be easily seen at this location.
This stone display is equivalent to what you'd find through the Gulf ravine. At the bottom of the ravine, where most of the nature trails are routed, you'll find Grimsby sandstone formations and limestone.
John Keryk, who has explored this area intensively over the years advises fossil hunters, " Park near or at where the nature park is off West Jackson Street and head up-stream. The outcrops best are near stream level. Can also park by RR tracks. That used to be a good area for weathered fossils from the Clinton formation (at least until they re-graded the RR right of way). Still, west side of tracks one can find good examples of Clinton formation lying on the ground." See map at the bottom of this page.
The display of wildflowers and plants found in the park is unsurpassed in the area. Spring, of course, is the best time to be looking for flowers. First come beautiful English violets. Also early are bloodroot, hepatica, and trillium. Later comes wild mint, leeks; then wild roses, jewelweed and doll's-eyes. Ferns are evident most of the year. In addition to the flower log produced below a wide variety of trees are found here.
| Agrimoney | Kidney Leaf Buttercup |
| Bedstraw | Large-Flowered Bellwort |
| Beechdrops | Large-Leaved Goldenrod |
| Black Snakeroot | Leeks |
| Blue Cohosh | May-Apple |
| Blue Phlox | Mints-(Wild) |
| Broad-Leaved Waterleaf | Motherwort |
| Burdock | Mugwort |
| Canada Violet | New England Aster |
| Carolina Spring Beauty | Pale Touch-Me-Not |
| Catnip | Plantain |
| Chickweed | Pokeweed |
| Clotbur | Purple Cress |
| Coltsfoot | Purple Flowering Raspberry |
| Columbine | Red Trillium |
| Cranesbill | Rose (Wild) |
| Creeping Buttercup | Sharp - Lobed Hepatica |
| Cut-Leaved Toothwort | Slender Nettle |
| Daisy Fleabane | Smooth Aster |
| Dames - Rocket | Solomon's Seal |
| Dandelion | Spotted Jewelweed |
| Downy Yellow Violet | Spring Beauty |
| Dutchman's Breeches | Squirrel Corn |
| Early Meadow Rue | Strawberry (Wild) |
| Enchanter's Nightshade | Sweet Cicely |
| English Sweet Violet | Thin - Leaved Coneflower |
| Evening Primrose | Toothwort/Pepper root |
| False Nettle | Trout Lily / Adder's Tongue |
| False Solomon's Seal | Tyrol Knapweed |
| Fringed Loosestrife | Virginia Knotweed |
| Garlic Mustard | Virginia Waterleaf |
| Gill-over-the-Ground | White Avens |
| Ginger (Wild) | White Baneberry |
| Heal - All | White Snakeroot |
| Helleborine Orchid | White Trillium |
| Herb - Robert | White Wood Aster |
| Honewort | Winter Cress |
| Jack-in-the-Pulpit | Wood Nettle |
| Jerusalem Artichoke | Zig-zag Goldenrod |
Picking flowers or harming plants or other
wildlife
is a violation of Lockport City Ordinances
"Take only pictures...Leave only footprints"
A wide variety of trees typical of the northeastern hardwood forest is found in Gulf Wilderness Park. A list of trees, shrubs, and vines follows below. Essential to the Gulf's life cycle are the many dead and dying trees. Birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles are dependent in various ways on "snags" or standing dead trees. They are used for nesting, courting, mating, hibernating and as rich sources for foraging insects. Equally important are fallen logs that are essential for feeding, reproduction and protection. Fungi, algae and mosses thrive on the decaying wood.
| Alternate-leaved Dogwood | Highbush Cranberry |
| American Basswood | Hop Hornbeam |
| American Beech | Japanese Knotweed |
| American Bittersweet (vine) | Moonseed (vine) |
| American Bladdernut | Northern Pricky Ash |
| American Elm | Panicled Dogwood |
| American Hornbeam | Pear |
| Apple | Poison Ivy |
| Black Birch | Red Oak |
| Black Cherry | Red Pine |
| Black Raspberry | Running Strawberry Bush |
| Black Walnut | Shadbush |
| Black Willow | Shagbark Hickory |
| Betternut | Spicebush |
| Eastern Cottonwood | Staghorn Sumac |
| Elderberry (Red) | Sugar Maple |
| European Barberry | Virginia Creeper (Vine) |
| Flowering Dogwood | White Ash |
| Grape (Wild) | White Mulberry |
| Hackberry | White Oak |
| Hawthorn | Witch Hazel |
The Lockport Home Page acknowledges resource material
for this website obtained from
a publication of the Gulf Park Citizen's Advisory Committee and
the science library of Allegheny Environmental Services, Inc.
"A book of verse beneath the bough,
A loaf of bread, A jug of wine---
And Thou, beside me in the Wilderness;
And wilderness were Paradise enow."
---Rubiyat of Omar Khayam
Although you may enter Wilderness Park off of Niagara Street, near the railroad where the "parking" area is indicated on the map, the preferred entry for most will be off West Jackson Street. There are four separate nature trails through the park which are color-coded on a map at the entry points. The trails have no special individual significance except as reference points.
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