In the Buffalo _Commercial_ of December 22, 1891, the following
interview with Mr. Stafford was printed, under the heading “Buffalo’s
Gold Mine:”
“If the richest gold mine in the whole world were discovered in
a suburb of Buffalo, what effect do you suppose it would have on
our people?” asked Mr. James B. Stafford of a _Commercial_
reporter.
“There would be tremendous excitement, of course,” was the
reply.
“There would,” returned Mr. Stafford; “but do you know that the
richest gold mine in the world would be a mere bagatelle
compared with the wealth that will spring from the Niagara Falls
tunnel? Do our people stop to think what it means? It means
prosperity for Buffalo beyond the wildest present expectation. I
believe I speak entirely within bounds when I say that it will
make Buffalo the second greatest city in the whole United
States, and that you and I won’t be very old when our city
reaches that place. Looking into the immediate future, I will
prophesy that we will have a million population within ten
years.
“Just look about you and see what electricity has already
done for the world, and yet we are scarcely entered up in
the Electric Age. We are at the dawn of a new era, and
electricity, now in its infancy, will grow and develop until
it revolutionizes the world. It will give us power, light,
heat, refrigeration. It will do everything for us that steam
now does, and here in Buffalo it is going to cost less than
water power.”
“What does it cost manufacturers for power now?”
“The water power of the country now in use costs from $16.67 per
horse-power per year at Lockport to $56.25 at Manayunk, Pa.,
while steam costs all the way from $35 to $175 per horse-power
per annum.
“When we consider that the entire power going to waste at the
Falls is one-seventh of the entire power of the world one can
comprehend what an inexhaustible mine of wealth we are on the
eve of developing. Already the problem of transmitting
electricity long distances without much waste has been solved.
Other companies are in the field, and before many years instead
of 125,000 horse-power there will probably be a million. Buffalo
being the nearest large city to the great cataract, it will be
the first to receive the benefits.
“Just let your mind run forward a dozen years. Electricity
running through cables from the Falls will act on our city like
the warm blood running through a human body, will permeate every
part of the city, running 2,000 horse-power engines as easily as
the dentist’s drill or the family sewing machine. Every wheel in
Buffalo will be eventually turned by electricity. It will light
and heat our houses. It will be cheaper than anything else. The
impetus that it will give our manufacturing enterprises will be
incalculable.
“Add to all this our great natural advantages and no wonder our
expectations should be great. We are midway between the great
producing regions of the West and the more thickly populated
sections of the East, with its continually increasing export
trade. What better point could be found for the manufacturing
centre of the country? Here all the shipping from the western
chain of lakes discharges its cargoes of grain, lumber, ore,
etc., reloading with up-cargoes of coal (and all the great
coal-carrying transportation corporations have branches that now
terminate in this city), laying at the door of the manufacturer
the raw material at the lowest possible freight rate, with
twenty-six lines of railroads leading from here in every
direction (many of them trunk lines), with a canal and waterway
to the seaboard giving the manufacturer the finest shipping
facilities possible.
“Buffalo already boasts of the largest coal distributing point
in the world, the largest sheep and fresh fish market in the
world; one of the largest horse markets; the largest grain
distributing point in the world; the second largest cattle
market in the world; we are destined to be the largest flour
milling city in the world, and with our suburban port of
Tonawanda we have the largest lumber market in the world.
“In the last ten years we have increased our population 89 per
cent., and with this new and wonderful factor that no other city
in the world’s history has ever had, it is not a wild statement
to make, but one that the present outlook would warrant, that
Buffalo and not Chicago will be the second American city.”