Welcome To Buffalo SAFeDATA

As of the 2000 census, the city had a total populus of 292,648. Buffalo is the state`s second-largest city after New York City and is the county seat of Erie County.

Buffalo is the economic and cultural center of the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area, an area with a populus of 1.2 1,000,000 people. Buffalo is the largest city of both the Buffalo Niagara Region and of western New York.

The City of Buffalo has been a long time home to the African-US community. An example is the 1828 village directory which listed 59 "Names of Coloured" is in charge of of families. In 1845, construction was begun on the Macedonia Baptist Church (commonly called the Michigan Street Baptist Church). This African-US church was an important meeting place for the abolitionist movement. On February 12,1974 the church was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Abolitionist leaders like William Wells Brown also made their home in Buffalo. Buffalo was also a terminus point of the Underground Railroad. Many fugitives crossed the Niagara River from Buffalo to Fort Erie, Ontario and freedom.

During the 1840`s, Buffalo continued its growth as a port city. Both passenger and commercial traffic enlargeed with some 93,000 passengers heading west from the port of Buffalo. Grain and commercial goods shipments led to repeated expansion of the harbor. The one of the first steam powered grain elevators was constructed which led to quicklyer unloading of lake freighters.

At the start of the twentieth century, immigrants from Europe came in to work in the local mills which used hydroelectric power generated from the river. The city got the nickname City of Light at this time due to the widespread electric lighting used. In 1881, Buffalo had deployed the first electric street lights in the US.

President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded at the Pan-US Exposition in Buffalo on Sept. 6, 1901. He died in the city eight days later and Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President of the US.