Niska Isle was prior to 1915 a by highly defensible hillock at the junction of the Lisha Kill (creek) and Mohawk River and was once the site of a Native American village. A trail led from the village to the Normans Kill and Helderberg Escarpment. A rope ferry was started in 1790 by Eldert Vischer connecting Ferry Road on the Niskayuna side to the Ferry Road on the opposite bank. The ferry was replaced by a short-lived bridge from 1900-2. The damming of the Mohawk River for the creation of the New York State Barge Canal in 1915 caused the mouth of the Lisha Kill to become a back bay and this required the building of a bridge to connect Ferry Road to the mainland. The bridge, despite getting a new deck in the 1980s, was showing its age by 2008 when it was proposed that Niska Isle be abandoned. This was rejected due to a projected price tag of over $6 million to buy out the landowners. A new bridge, costing almost as much, was built in 2010.