Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/709

BUFFALO. are supplemented by school and collegiate, and Historical Society, Society of Natural Sciences, Law (Eighth Judicial District), Erie Railroad, German Young Men's Association, Lutheran Young Men's Association, Merchants' Exchange, and Y. M. C. A. libraries. The Buffalo Library Building is occupied also by the Fine Arts Academy and the Society of Natural Sciences, both of which have interesting collections illustrating many subjects in their particular lines.

Buffalo is one of the most marked of large American cities in its recent development, and owes its prosperity to commerce. Although the city is so well located for a great commercial centre, originally the only harbor was in the shallow water of Buffalo Creek. The United States Government has constructed a series of breakwaters, forming both an inner and outer harbor, and is building a new breakwater to Stony Point, which will increase greatly the area protected from storms. The State has constructed Erie Basin, at the terminus of the Erie Canal, and the city has deepened Buffalo Creek, and constructed a ship canal to increase the wharf facilities. There is now a wharf frontage of 8 miles, with ample room for further extensions along Niagara River and along the lake.

Several great steamship lines and innumerable independent vessels ply to the chief ports on the Great Lakes, and there are several ferries to the Canada side, besides the International Bridge, completed at a cost of $1,500,000. The city is connected with the tide-waters of the Hudson by the Erie Canal, and with ports on Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River by the Welland Canal, and is also the terminus or connecting-point of a score of railroads. Among them are the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern; Michigan Central; Grand Trunk; New York Central; West Shore; Lackawanna; Wabash; Pennsylvania; New York, Lake Erie and Western; Lehigh Valley; Western New York and Pennsylvania; Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg; and New York, Chicago and Saint Louis. A belt-line railroad encircles the city, affording valuable facilities for intercommunication.

The commerce of Buffalo by these various means of transportation is very great. With a season of only about 240 days in the year, Buffalo ranks with the leading American and European ports in extent of traffic. The immense quantity of flour and grain moved from the Western States to the seaboard constitutes the most important feature of its commerce; but live stock, lumber, and coal, iron ore, and fish, also, are of importance. Some part of the lumber and iron ore which arrive at this end of Lake Erie is received at (q.v.), a suburb to the north, on Niagara River, but Buffalo receives large quantities of each. Over 15,000,000 pounds of fish are received annually, mainly from Georgian Bay, and are distributed as far east as Boston and as far west as Denver. The horse market and sheep market of Buffalo are the largest in the United States, and in the trade in cattle and hogs Buffalo is among the leading American cities. The material facilities for handling this enormous traffic form a most important feature of Buffalo. The first grain-elevator in the world was built in Buffalo in

1843, and now there are some fifty elevators, transfer towers, and floating elevators. These represent an investment of over $13,000,000, can handle in one day 5,000,000 bushels of grain, and store at one time 29,000,000 bushels. The coal-docks have a capacity of 29,000 tons a day, and on the eastern outskirts of the city are the enormous coal-stocking trestles, in which the railway companies keep their accumulated supply. In East Buffalo are the railroad stockyards, 75 acres in extent, affording transfer facilities for through freight, and sales-yards for the local supply of live stock.

In addition to vast commercial activities, Buffalo's manufacturing interests are extensive and varied. In the production of foundry and machine-shop products, including stoves, nails, etc., and agricultural implements, the city ranks among the foremost. Other industries are slaughtering and meat-packing, refining petroleum, and ship-building; clothing, flouring and grist-mill products, brick, stone, lime, and stucco, malt and distilled liquors, soap and candles, starch, furniture, and tobacco and cigars, are extensively produced. Besides these are immense establishments manufacturing saddlery and harness, cars, awnings, tents, sails, willowware, carriages, wagons, cutlery, patent medicines, surgical appliances, etc. Power from the new electric plant at (q.v.), brought through three circuits with an aggregate capacity of 30,000 horse-power, is already used in Buffalo to a large extent, and the cheap and abundant supply from this source justifies the prediction of a rapid expansion of manufacturing industries in the near future.

The receipts for 1900 of the Buffalo post-office amounted to over $800,000, a figure which represents an increase of nearly 100 per cent. in the last decade.

The government is vested in a mayor, elected every four years; a bicameral city council; and administrative departments, of which the health, fire, police, civil service, and park boards are appointed by the mayor; the city clerk, elected by the council; and all other municipal officials chosen by popular vote.

Buffalo spends annually, in maintenance and operation, about $6,000,000, the main items of expense being about $1,140,000 for schools, $650,000 for interest on debt, $780,000 for the police department, $700,000 for the fire department, $190,000 for parks and gardens, $120,000 for street cleaning and sprinkling, $350,000 for the water-works, nearly as much for municipal lighting, $155,000 for charitable institutions, $110,000 for garbage removal, $100,000 for libraries. The water-works, which were built in 1868 at a total cost of over $9,100,000, are owned and operated by the city, the entire water-works system now including about 400 miles of mains. During recent years great municipal activity has been displayed in the improvement of the water-supply service; in the laying of asphalt pavements; in the construction of natural-gas mains, facilitating the substitution of this fuel for coal; in the removal, in the business district, of overhead telephone and telegraph wires to subways, in which are carried also the fire-alarm and police wires of the city; in the establishment of the great public library (1897) and of municipal baths;