Place Information
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Buffalo is an American city in western New York. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 292,648.[1] It is the state's second-largest city, after New York City, and is the county seat of Erie County. It is also the economic and cultural center of the Buffalo-Niagara Region, a diverse metropolitan area with a population of 1.2 million people. Buffalo is also part of the Golden Horseshoe, an international metropolitan area of over 9.7 million people. Buffalo lies at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the southern head of the Niagara River, which connects Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. History
The City of Buffalo received its name from the creek that flows through it, and likely dates from the mid 18th Century, when the area was first settled by Europeans. The area was previously settled by an Iroquois tribe, the Ongiara. The city was designed in 1804 with a radial street and grid system, one of only three in the US. In 1825, the town became the western end of the Erie Canal and had a population of around 2,400. It was incorporated as a city in 1832. Buffalo was a terminus of the Underground Railroad and helped many fugitives cross the Niagara River to Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada and freedom. At the start of the 20th century, immigrants from Europe came in to work in the local mills which used local hydro-electric power. The city got the nickname City of Light at this time due to the widespread electric lighting used. The link to Fort Erie, known as the Peace Bridge was opened in 1927. The city's economy declined in the later half of the 20th century, due to the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1957, cutting the city off from the normal trade routes. The city, which boasted over half a million people at its peak in the 1950's, has seen its population decline by almost 50%, as industries shut down and people left the Rust Belt for the employment opportunities of the South and West. At the same time, the suburbs adjacent to Buffalo have grown from 300,000 in the 1950's to over 600,000 in 2007. Various development efforts at the start of the 21st century aim to reverse that trend. Distancing itself from its industrial past, Buffalo is redefining itself as a cultural, banking, educational, and medical center. The city was named by Reader's Digest as the third cleanest city (envonmentally) in America in 2005.[2] In 2001 USA Today named Buffalo the winner of its "City with a Heart" contest, proclaiming it the nation's "friendliest city." Also, in 1996 and 2002, Buffalo won the All-America City Award. Research Tips
External LinksA number of excellent external web pages exist to support family history research about Buffalo, NY:
Ancestors, Buildings, Companies, and more
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