Buffalo’s location is unique. It is the stopping off place between
distant sections for men, animals, lumber, grain and general
merchandise. The incidental business growing out of this fact is
enormous. Grain, coal, iron, oil, lumber and other products of this
great country gravitate toward Buffalo, and here they are sent to the
mills, refineries and factories, or are transferred from boats to cars,
or cars to boats, and sent east or west as the case may be.
The grain receipts by lake at this port have more than tripled in the
past ten years, reaching nearly 165,000,000 bushels in 1891. These
shipments are bound to vastly increase as new stretches of country in
the West and Northwest are opened up and tapped by railroad lines. The
recent passage of the river and harbor appropriation bill, by which an
expenditure of $4,000,000 is authorized in securing a twenty-foot
channel for lake navigation, will result in still lower rates and
greatly increased shipments by lake. The saving in lake freights over
the average railroad rates in 1891 was about $150,000,000.
Many of the largest coal trestles in the world are located here. This is
the greatest coal distributing point in the world. Our coal trade is
simply enormous. To give an indication of this, it is sufficient to
quote the coal shipments by lake alone from Buffalo in 1891. They
amounted to 2,365,895 tons, and the shipments by canal and rail were
very large. A conservative estimate places the value of property used in
the coal trade here at $10,000,000. This estimate, of course, does not
include vessels engaged in the coal trade, nor railroad property outside
of that actually devoted to the coal business.
The lumber trade here is phenomenally large. This, of course, is to be
expected, owing to our location at the foot of the great lakes. The rich
lumbering districts bordering upon the lakes are tributary to us, and
the consequence is that Buffalo and Tonawanda, which are practically
one, receive and distribute immense quantities of lumber. This is, in
fact, the greatest distributing point for lumber in the world.
In addition to all this, we have the largest sheep market in the world,
one of the largest horse markets in the world, and, next to Chicago, the
largest cattle market in the world.