Nowhere on the North American continent is there so grand a field for
investment as in Buffalo. Values here have been and are phenomenally
low. It has been and is a conservative city. There has never been a boom
in Buffalo. There has been increase in values, but no inflation, no
boom. Talk of a Buffalo boom has been heard, but the presence of a boom
is here denied most emphatically and earnestly. Values in Buffalo and
vicinity are lower than in any other progressive city of its size in the
country. There has been so much available land that inflation has been
checked. A great deal of Buffalo property has changed hands within the
past year or two, but at very reasonable figures. Millions will be made
within a few years by landholders, and without effort on their part. A
dollar planted in the soil of Buffalo today will spring up as two
dollars next year.
When a city doubles its population it at the same time quadruples the
value of its real estate. It is freely prophesied that Buffalo’s
population will be doubled in five years, quadrupled in ten. The
cheapest power in the world and unequalled shipping facilities--by
railroad, lake and canal--will produce this wonderful metamorphosis.
Cheap power! Cheap freights! A world of wealth is contained in the
combination.
Buffalo has a most substantial foundation on which to build a
manufacturing metropolis. It is a conservative city, full of careful,
cautious business men. It has come along by comparatively slow and
always steady progress, taking no forward step until strong and ready
for it. Commercial depressions have affected us but little. Panics have
avoided us, for panics are like plagues and seize hold where the
conditions are unhealthy. We have had neither plagues nor panics; we
have a healthy city physically and financially.
Now a new era has dawned. We are about to leap to an eminence undreamed
of in years gone by. Strong from the strength of right business living
we are equal to the swifter pace of the new order of things. The sublime
force of the Niagara is chained and diverted to manufacturing uses.
Every wheel in Buffalo will be turned by this marvelous power at far
less cost than machinery can be run anywhere else in the wide world.
There’s a giant force behind the leap. Cheap power! Cheap freights!
These are the talismanic symbols of a mighty greatness.