The Barrel Worked, the Business Plan Didn’t

Annie Edson Taylor did not go over Niagara Falls for the thrill.

She went for the money.

In 1901, Taylor was a 63-year-old widowed schoolteacher from Auburn, New York.  She was out of work, running short of options and living in an era before Social Security and widespread retirement pensions provided a safety net for older Americans.

She needed a way to support herself.

Taylor came up with one that was either ingenious or insane: She would become the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

The danger was part of the business plan.

If she survived, Taylor reasoned, newspapers would make her famous. That fame could be turned into speaking engagements, appearances and autograph sales. One terrifying trip over the falls might provide enough celebrity to support her for years.

First, however, she had to live through it.

Taylor had a barrel built from oak and prepared for the plunge. They placed an anvil inside as ballast to keep it upright.

Before attempting the stunt herself, she tested the barrel.

Then came October 24, 1901 — Taylor’s birthday.

Friends helped seal her inside. She brought along a heart-shaped pillow for luck. They pumped extra air into the barrel with a bicycle pump.

Then they set her adrift above Horseshoe Falls.

The current took over.

Taylor and the barrel disappeared over the edge in a mass of rushing water that had killed others who ventured too close.

Rescuers eventually reached the barrel on the Canadian side and cut it open.

Taylor was alive.

She emerged with a gash on her head and relatively little other injury after surviving what seemed almost impossible.

Her reaction did not sound like someone eager for an encore.

“Nobody ought ever do that again,” she said.

Taylor had done the hard part.

She had survived Niagara Falls.

For a while, the rest of her plan appeared to be working, too.

She was famous. Newspapers carried her story, and the woman who had gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel became a public curiosity.

But fame proved easier to create than to monetize.

The attention faded.

Then Taylor’s manager disappeared with the barrel — the most important physical object connected to her stunt and something she needed for appearances.

Taylor spent money hiring private detectives to find it.

Instead of turning the barrel into a source of income, she burned through her savings trying to get it back.

The celebrity that was supposed to provide financial security lasted roughly a season. The speaking engagements and autograph sales never produced the fortune Taylor had imagined.

Her achievement remained extraordinary.

Her business plan did not.

Taylor lived another two decades after her trip over the falls. She died in 1921 at age 82, penniless, in the Niagara County poorhouse.

The woman who had risked her life in hopes of escaping poverty ultimately could not escape it.

Others made sure she was not forgotten.

Admirers paid for a headstone at Oakwood Cemetery in Niagara Falls, where Taylor was buried among others associated with the long history of people challenging the falls.

The section became known as Stunter’s Rest.

Her grave remains there, marking the life of a woman who looked at old age and poverty, devised an almost unbelievable solution, and survived the part most people would have considered impossible.

The barrel worked.

The business plan didn’t.