What is Chautauqua?

Chautauqua is an adult education movement that gained popularity during the late-19th and early-20th Centuries. Independent Chautauqua’s, or Assemblies, spread throughout the United States and eventually this movement made its way to Niagara-on-the-Lake.  To this day the Chautauqua Institute still operates a summer education program in Chautauqua, New York.  

The Canadian Chautauqua was designed as a spoke and wheel pattern with the streets radiating from a central point. The Assembly constructed a wharf and carefully laid out the property with ~500 building lots and a section of the property (bordering the lake) was reserved and named Ryerson Park.

Built on a 92-acre lot on the northwest end of Niagara-on-the-Lake, the Niagara Assembly established a summer resort built upon the ideas of the Chautauqua movement. Even though the summer resort has long since closed, the imprint that this organization has left behind has resulted in the development of a unique community in the heart of Niagara.