Thousand Islands Boldt, as proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, instructed the hotel's "maître d'hôtel", Oscar Tschirky, to put the dressing on the menu in 1894. Sociologists attempting to determine the true origin of Thousand Island dressing found that several conflicting origin stories exist, and that they vary between the various islands and villages of the Thousand Islands region. None appear to have any strong written evidence to support their specific claims. Thousand Islands The Thousand Islands constitute an archipelago of 1,864 islands that straddles the Canada–US border in the Saint Lawrence River as it emerges from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario.
Thousand Islands Railway build the line; that company already operated steamship docks in the village. The original line opened 1 January 1884. The company name was changed to Thousand Islands Railway four months later. A swing bridge over the mouth of the Gananoque River was constructed in 1894 to provide service to businesses on the east side of the river. The line originally served to carry timber and freight to Gananoque's docks, where it could be loaded onto ships. While available timber stocks soon diminished, passenger traffic increased as the Grand Trunk under Charles Melville Hays promoted the tiny town as a vacation