Buffalo

Buffalo is a port city at the eastern end of Lake Erie in western New York. The settlement took its name from Buffalo Creek, which flows westward into the lake harbor. The Peace Bridge carries international vehicular traffic across the Niagara River to Fort Erie in Ontario.

The village was surveyed in 1804 with a radial street plan extending outward from the waterfront. The Erie Canal opened in 1825, connecting the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and Atlantic shipping lanes. Grain elevators, flour mills, and transshipment warehouses expanded rapidly along the harbor during the 19th century. Buffalo received its city charter during the 1830s as inland maritime commerce multiplied. The University at Buffalo was established during the 1840s as a medical college before adding programs in engineering, pharmacy, and law.

Grain elevators along the Buffalo River store wheat, barley, and oats for food processing plants and regional milling operations. Rich Products develops frozen dough, non-dairy toppings, and specialty bakery desserts at its waterfront corporate facilities. New Era Cap Company manufactures licensed baseball caps and customized athletic headwear from its downtown headquarters. Docks along the outer harbor unload bulk freighter shipments of iron ore, gravel, and rock salt for manufacturing facilities and winter highway maintenance across upstate New York.

Buffalo City Hall features a 115 m (378 ft) tower adorned with exterior stone carvings that depict the industrial history of the Great Lakes. The Darwin D. Martin House was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the Prairie School style during the 1900s, showing multi-level brick piers and art glass windows. The Buffalo AKG Art Museum exhibits modern and contemporary paintings inside gallery pavilions beside the municipal park lake. Canalside occupies the terminus of the historic waterway, hosting public ice skating during winter months and outdoor concerts in summer.