Dunkirk, in New York, northeast of Erie, is another harbor on the
lake, and a terminal of the Erie Railway, the land hereabout being the
monotonous level plain of western New York. Rounding the eastern end
of Lake Erie, at the head of its outlet stream, the Niagara River, is
Buffalo, the chief port of the lake and the metropolis of western New
York. It is surrounded for miles upon the level land with railway
terminals and car-yards, amid which factories, breweries,
coal-pockets, cattle-pens and grain elevators are distributed. This
great city, which has grown to four hundred thousand population, takes
it name from the American bison, who roamed in large herds over the
lands adjacent to Lake Erie as late as 1720, and thus gave the name to
Buffalo Creek. The city covers a broad surface at the foot of Lake
Erie, and is coeval with the nineteenth century, having been founded
in 1801; but in the earlier years it was only a military post, and did
not assume a commercial standing or begin to grow much until after the
opening of the Erie Canal. The neighboring post of Niagara, a short
distance down that river, was of more importance in the early days of
the frontier, for it was on Niagara River, in 1669, that the Sieur de
La Salle, who described the frozen stream as "like a plain paved with
polished marble," built and in the following summer launched the
"Griffin," the first rude vessel that explored the Upper Lakes.
Afterwards one or two trading cabins appeared on Buffalo Creek, and
then there was constructed a stockade fort. For thirty years the
hunters and traders fought the savages and captured wild beasts, and
then, after an interval of peace, the War of 1812 came with new
ravages, during which the little settlement around the stockade at
Buffalo was burnt by the British, who held the fort at the entrance to
Niagara River. When the Erie Canal was opened, the expansion of the
settlement became rapid, and its eligible position at the point where
the lake commerce had to connect with the canal and the railways
leading to the Atlantic seaboard has since given full scope to
business enterprise and made it a large and wealthy city.
The Buffalo suburbs are gridironed by railroads, and their terminals
spread along the water-front and the sinuosities of Buffalo Creek. The
grain elevators, as in all the lake cities, are a prominent feature,
and they stand like huge monsters, forty of them, with high heads and
long trunks along the creek and canal basins as if waiting for their
prey. The fleets of vessels come over the lakes laden with grain from
the West; tugs take them to one of these monsters, and down out of the
long neck is plunged a trunk deep into the vessel's hold, which sucks
up all the grain. It is stored and weighed and sent on its journey
eastward. If this is by canal, the barge waits on the other side, and
the grain runs down into it through another trunk; if by railway, the
cars are run under or alongside the elevator and quickly filled. Then
the lake vessels are laden with coal for the return voyage. While an
American gives these elevators scant attention, being used to them,
not so the foreigner, who regards them with the greatest curiosity.
Thus wrote Anthony Trollope about them: "An elevator is as ugly a
monster as has yet been produced. In uncouthness of form it outdoes
those obsolete old brutes who used to roam about the semi-aqueous
world and live a most uncomfortable life, with their great hungering
stomachs and huge unsatisfied maws. Rivers of corn and wheat run
through these monsters night and day. And all this wheat which passes
through Buffalo comes loose in bulk; nothing is known of sacks or
bags. To any spectator in Buffalo this becomes immediately a matter of
course; but this should be explained, as we in England are not
accustomed to see wheat travelling in this open, unguarded and
plebeian manner. Wheat with us is aristocratic, and travels always in
its private carriage."
The extensive commerce of Buffalo is varied by iron manufacturing,
breweries, distilleries, oil refineries and other industries, but the
elevators, coal chutes and railroad and canal business seem to
overshadow everything else. The city has wide tree-lined streets, and
is most handsome with its many fine buildings. There is an extensive
system of attractive parks connected by boulevards; broad streets
lined with well-built residences, and in the newer parts the level
surface is filled with ornamental homes, some most expensively
constructed and elaborately adorned. The well-kept lawns and gardens
are fully open to view, and Delaware Avenue, thus bordered, is one of
the most attractive streets. On the Main Street, among many impressive
structures, is the huge Ellicott Square Building, said to be the
largest office-building in the world, housing a business community
approximating five thousand persons. There are also two public
Libraries and many handsome churches.
The locality of greatest interest in Buffalo is probably the little
Prospect Park out at the edge of Lake Erie, where its waters flow into
Niagara River. The basins and harbor making the beginning of the Erie
Canal, which we have traced all across New York State, are down at the
edge of the lake, and a steep bluff, rising about sixty feet, makes
the verge of the Park, and continues around along the bank of the
river. Here it is crowned by an esplanade surrounding the remains of
old Fort Porter, a dilapidated relic of bygone days of frontier
conflicts. A couple of superannuated cannon point their muzzles across
the water towards Canada, but otherwise the locality is peaceful. A
small military force is kept here, probably to watch the British Fort
Erie over on the opposite river bank, a few hundred yards off, but
the worst conflicts now are bouts at playing ball. The protecting
harbor breakwater is out in front, and seen down the Niagara River are
the light trusses of the International Railway Bridge, spanning its
swift current, and the Erie Canal alongside the bank. Into the narrow
river sweeps the drainage of the Great Lakes, an enormous mass of
water, and in the centre the city has placed a large crib, tapping the
clear current for its water-supply. The powerful torrent flows
steadily northward out of Lake Erie, with a speed of six or seven
miles an hour, to make the Niagara cataract, twenty miles away, and
show its tremendous force in the Niagara gorge. In the words of
Goethe:
"Water its living strength first shows,
When obstacles its course oppose."