Buffalo invented the grain elevator and fed the world through a canal
Unloading grain from lake ships in 1840s Buffalo was back-breaking work done by hand for $1.50 a day. In 1843 a local inventor and an engineer adapted a steam-powered lift to scoop it out mechanically, a thousand bushels an hour. The grain elevator helped turn a burned frontier village into the world's biggest grain port.
Long before that, the Seneca people knew the site on Buffalo Creek as Došowëh, meaning between the basswoods, a name they still use for the city. Their professional storytellers told legends only in winter, believing the tales could lull even plants and animals to sleep and so harm the harvest. After the American Revolution, a Dutch-backed land company acquired four million acres of the region for roughly thirty-three cents an acre, over the objections of the Seneca chief Red Jacket.
The village was laid out with eight streets meeting at a central square and briefly called New Amsterdam. British forces burned it in 1813 during the War of 1812, but it was rebuilt by 1815. Its big break came when it beat rival Black Rock to become the western end of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825. Buffalo became a city in 1832 and doubled in size between 1845 and 1855, with nearly two-thirds of residents born abroad, largely Irish and German. It was also a final stop on the Underground Railroad, where many escaping slaves crossed the Niagara River into Canada.
Railways later eclipsed the canal, but Buffalo became the country's second-largest rail hub after Chicago, and by 1900 it was the leading grain port and a flour-milling centre powered by some of the first hydroelectricity from Niagara. The 1901 Pan-American Exposition showcased an Electric Tower lit by more than two million bulbs; it was also where President McKinley was assassinated, and Theodore Roosevelt took the oath in a Buffalo mansion.
Steel and wartime factories kept the city booming until mid-century, when 80% of local jobs were in manufacturing. Deindustrialisation and the St. Lawrence Seaway, which let ships bypass it, brought decline. Today about 278,000 people live in the city, known for its snow, its chicken wings and the oldest urban park system in the country.
Source: Buffalo, New York
