How Buffalo was named remains a mystery, although the site has never been called anything else. Ironically, there have never been buffalo in Buffalo. One theory blames the misnomer on a mispronunciation of the French beau fleuve, or "beautiful river." The river in question is the Niagara.
The famous French explorer Robert La Salle paddled his canoe down the Niagara in 1628. A small French settlement was established in 1758. It was burned by the British the following year, but the settlers remained. Joseph Ellicott informed them in 1800 that the Holland Land Co. had bought the land. Ellicott mapped out plans for a town to be called New Amsterdam and patterned after Washington, D.C.
The town was built, but residents kept on calling it Buffalo. Burned down again by the British during the War of 1812, the town was quickly rebuilt. Then in 1818, the first Great Lakes steamboat, Walk-on-the-Water, was built, which was the first of two major events that turned a small village into a major city in only 16 years.
The second event was the opening of the grand Erie Canal in 1825. By connecting numerous trade and transportation routes, the canal made Buffalo the nucleus of the shipping trade between the Great Lakes region, Canada and the eastern United States. Later, the addition of railroads to Buffalo's transportation network boosted the city's growth potential even higher.
Buffalo's major industries include, rubber, plastics, glass, electronics as well as airplane and automobile manufacturing. High-technology has also become a part of the areas industrial base. Agriculture is also important and the growing of fruits and vegetables is a major industry. Grain distribution and flour and feed production have been part of the local economy since the 1950s.
Buffalo has produced Presidents and other important people as well. Two of its residents, Millard Fillmore and Grover Cleveland, became president. Fillmore is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery. Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in at the Wilcox Mansion on Delaware Avenue after President William McKinley's assassination at the city's Pan-American Exposition in 1901.
Other former Buffalo residents include William G. Fargo of the Wells Fargo stagecoach line, and Ellsworth Statler, who opened the first Hotel Statler on Delaware Avenue in 1908 with the slogan "A room with a bath for a dollar and a half."
Samuel Clemens, a resident in the 1870s, was editor of the Buffalo Express. Author Taylor Caldwell also called Buffalo home. Such musical classics as "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," "My Wild Irish Rose" and "Over the Rainbow" were penned by Buffalo composers.
Buffalo is a major college town; its 18 higher educational facilities range in curriculum from liberal arts to business to vocational training. The State University of New York at Buffalo is the largest university in the state.
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