Decades before the term ‘Buffalo Wings’ evoked the image of a plate of fried chicken parts covered in hot sauce, the wings produced in Buffalo were covered in fabric and aluminum. Buffalo Wings flew in defense of freedom in two world wars. Machines built in Buffalo broke the sound barrier, pioneered vertical flight, lifted astronauts off the surface of the Moon, and trained others to fly the Space Shuttle. For More information about these images, go to post: “Four Aviation Milestones Produced in Buffalo.”
Buffalo’s Transportation Legacy – An Introduction to the Buffalo Wings blog
To fully appreciate Buffalo’s place as a major player in the aviation industry, it is necessary to understand the city’s industrial heritage. It is also important to note that Buffalo became a leader in the production of aircraft because it was already a mature industrial center, not the other way around.
Buffalo, New York’s place as an important transportation center predates its 1832 incorporation as a city. The foundation was laid when Samuel Wilkinson led an 1820 push to tame Lake Erie’s tumultuous waves by building a harbor to protect the minimal commerce that was happening at the time. Wilkinson received a $12,000 grant from New York State to create the harbor. Necessary work included removal of a dangerous sand bar at the eastern end of Lake Erie and construction of a break wall to protect the inner harbor from the tall waves produced when storms push lake waters to the east. The effect is known as a seiche, like the back-and-forth sloshing of water in a bathtub. The epitaph on Wilkeson’s Forest Lawn Cemetery grave reads Urbem Condidit, Latin for “He built the city.”
By the time the harbor work was underway, New York State was planning a canal that would link the Hudson River near Albany with the Great Lakes. Buffalo was chosen to be the western terminus of the Erie Canal over then-larger rival Black Rock because Buffalo had the advantage of access to the calmer lake waters, as opposed to the rapid current of the Niagara River. The first canal boats left Buffalo on October 26, 1825, When they arrived in New York City, New York Governor DeWitt Clinton poured a bucket of Lake Erie water into the ocean in in a ceremony known as the “wedding of the waters.” Buffalo’s star was on the rise.
The United States was an agrarian society when the canal opened and would remain so for many years thereafter. Flour for bread was grown locally and milled in makeshift mills usually located next to and powered by running water. Raw materials for building consisted of felling the nearby trees and sawing them in similar mills equipped with saws. The opening of the Erie Canal effectively connected the vast farmlands and raw materials of middle North America with millions of potential purchasers along the eastern seaboard of the United States. It was no longer necessary for goods to make the long trip down the Mississippi River to New Orleans on its way to eastern ports such as Boston, New York City, or Philadelphia. Nor would goods need to travel overland by wagons. Both of these methods were time-consuming and expensive. The ability to ship by canal barges caused the cost of transportation to plummet.