History of Buffalo
Tuesday, January 6, 2009 5:19The area, which is now known as Buffalo, was populated by Indian tribes long before the European came to America. There were several tribes known as Ongiara living around Buffalo Creek and Niagara Falls, when the first French explorers came to the region in 1758. They established a small settlement at the mouth of the Buffalo Creek, which was later destroyed during the French Indian War with the British that took over the region in 1763. The area was consequently bought from the Seneca Indians by the Dutch, which have established a parcel production here in 1801. The name of the settlement was changed several times from Lake Erie to Buffalo Creek, and then shortened to simply Buffalo.
There are many hotels in Buffalo NY that will tell you the stories of this beautiful city.
The 19th century has marked the Golden Age for the City of Buffalo, with the completion of Erie Canal in 1825, which made Buffalo its terminus point. The city has become one of the major transportation hubs in the country, with West explorers coming to the place from the East Coast in order to continue their journey by rail or river. This made Buffalo a prosperous city with a steadily increasing population and intensely developing industry. Its advantageous location in the mouth of Buffalo Creek and the four Grand Lakes made it a big production center and distribution point, connecting the East side of the United States with the Central and Western parts of the country. With years, Buffalo has also become the major railroad hub in the region, making it even more important.
In the 20th century, Buffalo was nicknamed «the City of Light» because it was the first city in the United States with widespread electric illumination. The electricity was produced by the local hydroelectric power station that was using the energy of Niagara Falls. But in the second half of the century the city’s importance faced a decline, mainly caused by the completion of St. Lawrence Seaway in 1957, which made the Erie Canal less useful. The trend of de-urbanization during the 60’s and the 70’s made the city’s population figures to fall back to those of the 19th century, and the decline of the production in the Rust Belt region has also contributed to the diminishing of Buffalo’s national importance.
