The story of Buffalo’s Pan-American Exposition  has returned in a new exhibit at The Buffalo History Museum—the Exposition’s only planned, permanent structure.

Join us on M&T Third Friday for free admission from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.! Discover Western New York’s rich history in more than a half-dozen exhibits, including “CONTINUUM: A HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY” and “ICONS: THE MAKERS AND MOMENTS OF BUFFALO SPORTS.” And bring the kids for “Junior History Buffs” children’s programming from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This free admission day is made possible through the generosity of M&T Bank.

Junior History Buffs is a program at The Buffalo History Museum that engages children ages 4-9 in age-appropriate history lessons, songs, stories, crafts and games. A short program, or “Circle Time,” is instructor-guided and includes songs, a brief lesson about local history and a story. After this, self-guided activities can be enjoyed by the whole family such as a craft, interactive artifact explorations, and games related to the exhibits. May's theme is Inventors and Engineers! Electricity an...

Come enjoy a tour of the grounds where the Pan-American Exposition took place over 100 years ago. Buffalo was the 8th largest city in the United States in 1901 and hosted over 8 million people from around the world during the Pan-American Exposition. Learn about the exhibits, the shows, the sounds and smells that were experienced while visiting the exposition. Start at the Buffalo History Museum, which is the only structure from the exposition that is still standing, and walk along the streets o...

Join the Smithsonian for a free, special screening of the new documentary gOD-Talk. The film is the culmination of a five-year study of the spiritual life of Black Millennials conducted by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture Center for the Study of African American Religious Life, in association with the Pew Research Center. The feature length film explores the lives of seven Black Millennials—Atheist, Buddhist, Christians, Muslim, Ifa, and Spiritualist—an...

Twelve years is a long time for anyone to hold a single elected office, and Tony Masiello did it twice. He was a member of the New York State Senate from 1981 to 1993, and served as the Mayor of Buffalo from 1993 to 2005. In addition, Tony was a member of the Buffalo Common Council for about 10 years during most of the 1970s. Masiello will be sharing his memories of an eventful political life at 6 p.m. on May 29 at the Buffalo History Museum. He'll be speaking with Budd Bailey, the host of a spe...

Join the Colored Musicians Club for one of Buffalo’s most storied musical traditions. The CMC’s legendary Sunday jam sessions, a staple of Buffalo’s music scene since 1935, have moved to The Buffalo History Museum while the historic club undergoes an expansion. Doors open at 5:30pm.

Join the Colored Musicians Club for one of Buffalo’s most storied musical traditions. The CMC’s legendary Sunday jam sessions, a staple of Buffalo’s music scene since 1935, have moved to The Buffalo History Museum while the historic club undergoes an expansion. Doors open at 5:30pm. $25 general, $20 for members

Join us as we explore seldom-seen pieces of Buffalo history in our Resource Center with our collections team! Museum Members will get a sneak-peek at how we store and care for more than 100,000 artifacts in our collection currently not on display. This program is for members only. Click here to learn more about how to become a member. 15 spots per tour. Space is limited! Pre-registration is required.

Test your knowledge of our city and region at the Museum’s Buffalo History trivia night! Bring a friend, or meet new friends for team-based Buffalo history trivia inside the State Court. Beer and wine will be available for purchase, and prizes will be awarded for the winners! Maximum of four members per team. $10 admission/ free for members Doors open at 5:30 pm. Tickets can be purchased in advance or at the door. Click here to purchase tickets!

Thanks to a partnership with Newspapers.com, we have free on-site, full text access to Buffalo newspapers, 1811 to the present. Most of them came from our collection. Anyone logged into our guest WiFi can search our Newspapers.com account. Bring your own laptop, or bring a flash drive and use one of ours. This is the only online resource on this page that you cannot access at home--unless you live in New York State. Click the link for details.

Grover Cleveland never owned a home during his years in Buffalo. He did buy land as an investment but never took up residence on it. Instead, he lived in downtown boarding houses and similar rented quarters. None of these buildings survive today. His last and longest Buffalo address, the Weed Block, was demolished in 1901. Here is a chronological list of his Buffalo addresses, with images where available. Image of Weed Block from Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo (1912), p.154.

This ledger, Verzeichniss der kirchen-glieder der deutschen missions-kirche in Buffalo, N.Y. contains 6 pages of member names from 1854-1858. We believe the mission was on Goodell near Oak. The ledger is in German, with fading ink. Several entries were not fully legible. Here is an index of the names, as best as we could make out.

Spend a beautiful summer evening enjoying live music on Buffalo’s favorite back porch! Our summer concert series, Party on the Portico, returns on June 21, July 19, and August 16 at 6pm on the back steps of our Museum overlooking Mirror Lake. Look forward to seeing bands like The Damone Jackson Outcome, Miller and the Other Sinners, Stephen Babcock, and more! Bring a friend and your dancing shoes! Party on the Portico is a 21 and over event and runs rain or shine. Guests can also explore the mus...

Spend a beautiful summer evening enjoying live music on Buffalo’s favorite back porch! Our summer concert series, Party on the Portico, returns on June 21, July 19, and August 16 at 6pm on the back steps of our Museum overlooking Mirror Lake. Look forward to seeing bands like The Damone Jackson Outcome, Miller and the Other Sinners, Stephen Babcock, and more! Bring a friend and your dancing shoes! Party on the Portico is a 21 and over event and runs rain or shine. Guests can also explore the mus...

Spend a beautiful summer evening enjoying live music on Buffalo’s favorite back porch! Our summer concert series, Party on the Portico, returns on June 21, July 19, and August 16 at 6pm on the back steps of our Museum overlooking Mirror Lake. Look forward to seeing bands like The Damone Jackson Outcome, Miller and the Other Sinners, Stephen Babcock, and more! Bring a friend and your dancing shoes! Party on the Portico is a 21 and over event and runs rain or shine. Guests can also explore the mus...

Join us for the return of our Paint the Town Art Auction on May 16! Bid on dozens of paintings, photos and more made by over 60 of the area’s top artists. Many of the artists drew inspiration from our region and from The Buffalo History Museum’s collection (see examples here). From watercolors depicting downtown landmarks to paintings inspired by the Pan-American Exposition, this is an event any fan of Buffalo won't want to miss. Explore all of the works at a special preview exhibit inside our M...

We have two sets of records from the Erie County Clerk's office. While they are not digitized or online, we do have these  inventories and indexes: Guide to the Erie County Clerk Records, 1808-1926, a detailed box and folder inventory Personal Name Index, so you can easily see if an ancestor is included in the above collection Erie County Insolvency Papers, 1807-1889 Erie County Hall image courtesy of our postcard collection

Discover the stories, wisdom and insights of Buffalo’s community elders. This new exhibit by the Uncrowned Queens Institute features portraits, biographies, and oral history interviews that capture the stories of a group of 12 of Buffalo’s senior community builders.

No Buffalo Bills weekend is complete without a stop at our Museum, which preserves the largest collection of Bills memorabilia in the world. In our “Icons: The Makers and Moments of Buffalo Sports” exhibit, you can relive some of the greatest moments in the team’s history through the dozens of objects on display that share the stories of unforgettable players, classic moments and incredible games. The exhibit draws on the 100,000 items preserved by our museum in the Greg D. Tranter Buffalo Bills...

One of the most iconic pieces in The Buffalo History Museum’s collection – a masterwork from a nationally significant artist – is back on display inside the Museum for the first time in over a decade.

FRANK stands for Find Resources and New Knowledge. It's the nickname we gave our online library catalog. FRANK is the most comprehensive tool to identify resources and collections within the Museum’s Research Library. Over 30,000 unique works (books, periodicals, manuscripts, letters, diaries, journals, microfilms, DVDs, and more) are listed here. To improve at-home access, we regularly add links, where available, to full-text, online versions of items we own.

Lists name of licensee and date of issue of license for butchers, cartmen, emigrant boarding houses, groceries, hackneys, omnibuses, porters, runners, shows and exhibitions, taverns, and wagons, 1850 Mar. 16 to 1863 Sept. 30. Scanning donated by Bridge & Case LLC.

Did you know the first Congressional representative to introduce equal pay legislation was a Buffalonian?  This #GivingTuesday we're sharing the story of a Buffalo trailblazer - Winfred C. Stanley. Image from the personal collection of Winifred Stanley's niece. In 1944, Miss Winifred Stanley advocated for equal pay for equal work. As a lawyer, she recognized the value of women's work, and appreciated their unprecedented ability to mobilize to support the United States war effort. Winifred knew w...

Inside our museum’s archive, more than 200,000 photos captured through the generations showcase the history of our city. There are photos of bygone streetscapes and neighborhoods, long-lost architectural landmarks and sporting venues, and incredible images of our waterfront during its industrial heyday. In recent years, our library has been diligently digitizing several thousand of these photos, which can now be found at our online Picture Store and purchased as a variety of keepsakes that make...

Listed here are about 2,500 stereoviews, also called stereographs and stereocards, mostly of the Buffalo/Niagara area, that are offline and can be seen by appointment. Most date from around 1870-1900. Cards are filed in order by photographer's name.

For three nonconsecutive years, 1828, 1832, and 1841, Buffalo city directories included a separate page that listed colored residents by name. We indexed all of those names here, about 200 of them, in alphabetical order. Click on About to view the three original directories.

Niagara Frontier was the quarterly journal we published from 1953 to 1983, picking up where the former Buffalo Historical Society Publications left off. All issues are now online at Archive.org, thanks to scanning donated by W.S. Hein Co.

We now have a page at Archive.org, also known as the Internet Archive, for sharing collections! We are regularly uploading various publications, finding aids, and other material that can be saved as PDFs.

In 1971-1972, to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the County of Erie, we published a series of pamphlets, one for each town and city in Erie County. Those 27 illustrated booklets, long out of print, are presented here in full text. Many thanks to W.S. Hein for carefully scanning these volumes. Erie County graphic courtesy of Wikipedia.

Developed by the Stained Glass Association of America Foundation (SGAA Foundation) in collaboration with Judson Studios, this exhibit pays homage to generations of stained-glass artists who have pushed the boundaries of the medium.

This collection contains three primary subsets: Joseph Ellicott's correspondence; the Henry Glowacki papers; and the Charles W. Evans papers. We microfilmed them in 1987. FamilySearch.org then digitized the films. You will need to register for a free FamilySearch account to view them. Then scroll down for a description of the contents of each roll of film and click on the tiny camera icons to start reading them. Unfortunately, there is no keyword searchability.    

The complete minutes of the Pan-American Exposition Board of Women Managers, 1900-1901, are online in four volumes. They are part of our Pan-American Exposition Company records (Mss. C65-7), the rest of which are not digitized or online.

A directory of associations, businesses, churches, doctors, hotels, lawyers, night clubs, professions and professionals, restaurants, schools, services, and societies in the Black communities of Buffalo, Lackawanna, and Niagara Falls, New York, published in 1958. Online here for the first time.

We're gearing up for an eventful end to 2023 at The Buffalo History Museum! We're very excited to debut new exhibits in September and October that proudly showcase our region's rich history, incredible stained glass artistry and so much more. Save the dates for these exhibit openings, and stay tuned for more information! Each exhibit will debut on M&T Third Fridays, when our Museum is free. Sept. 15, 2023- January 14, 2024 On the Shoulders of Giants: Innovation in American Stained Glass Deve...

New evidence uncovered by The Buffalo History Museum might explain why The Anchor Bar chose to serve blue cheese and celery with its first plates of wings nearly six decades ago. [caption id="attachment_29131" align="aligncenter" width="601"] Bar-Bill Tavern Wings as captured by Visit Buffalo Niagara[/caption] Celery and blue cheese have been a fixture of wing orders served at restaurants in Buffalo for as long as most can remember. Museum researchers discovered a piece of food history that may...

At midnight in Niagara Falls on July 23-24, 2011, Kitty Lambert-Rudd and Cheryle Lambert-Rudd of Buffalo exchanged vows and became the first legally-wed same-sex couple in the state of New York, a wedding made possible by legislation signed by then-governor Andrew Cuomo. The event grabbed headlines around the world. Kitty and Cheryle worked long and hard for this moment, making endless lobbying trips to Albany and organizing at the state and local level. New York was the 6th state in the union t...

Buffalo families have one more opportunity to experience The Buffalo History Museum’s Train Gallery, which is scheduled to temporarily close on June 3. For more than 30 years, the expansive display has featured 1900s replica model trains running on more than 200 feet of track, a scale Erie Canal lock, and 100 miniature handmade buildings portraying 19th century Buffalo and Western New York. The Train Gallery has been maintained and operated by the Rail Barons, a longtime dedicated team of volunt...

Tucked away in our museum’s archives are a collection of thousands of postcards that depict rare, colorized images of a bygone Buffalo. The Buffalo History Museum has been adding to its collection of 9,000 postcards for generations, according to Library Director Cynthia Van Ness. Before every home in Buffalo had a telephone, postcards functioned as the text message of the day: a quick, nimble way to communicate a note back when mail carriers delivered in both the morning and the evening. Buffalo...

This year for Women’s History Month, we wanted to highlight some important Buffalonians that are prominently featured throughout our collections. Explore the stories of seven women who made history here, and find out more about them on your next visit to our Museum. Mary Burnett Talbert (1866-1923) was a civil rights activist, educator, and WWI Red Cross nurse and was among the most prominent African American figures of her time. She was a tireless worker for human rights in the late 19th and ea...

Buffalo, NY – Feb. 23, 2023 - The Buffalo History Museum’s Wednesday night program series, “Happy Hour History,” will return for the spring on March 1 at 6 p.m. The lecture and event series will feature documentary screenings and historians speaking on a variety of topics. Beer and wine will be available for purchase at each event. Admission for the program series is $5 per event (unless otherwise noted), and free for members. On Wednesdays, each program starts at 6 p.m. and the Museum will rema...

This spreadsheet lists individuals who were associated with the Michigan Street Baptist Church (MSBC) in the 19th century, plus individuals who lived in the vicinity of the MSBC, according to the 1850 & 1860 federal censuses. It was compiled in 2013 by Dr. Judith Wellman; Tanya Warren; Crawford & Stearns Architects; and Historical New York Research Associates as an appendix to the Michigan Street Baptist Church Historic Structure Report. Their report is available only in hard copy at 3 B...

Buffalo's Black history includes many stories of unsung heroes and lesser-known trailblazers. Explore the stories below of the city's first Black author, playwright, juror and television host. And discover even more Buffalo firsts of all kinds, more than 350 of them, at this link. First Black author In 1853, James Monroe Whitfield (1822-1871), who was a barber, became Buffalo’s first published Black author. His book of verse, America and Other Poems, was published in Buffalo by J.S. Leavitt. Whi...

Here is a list of books, studies, images, atlases, and other material that documents the planning and construction of the Humboldt and Kensington expressways in Buffalo. Links have been added where available.

The Uncrowned Queens Institute has debuted a new exhibit at The Buffalo History Museum, "Say Their Names: Honor Their Legacies," which shares the stories, wisdom and insights of Buffalo’s community elders. The exhibit features portraits, biographies and video interviews that capture the stories of a group of Buffalo’s senior community builders. Buffalo's Uncrowned Queens Institute works to preserve the histories of African American women and men across the country.  

In the fall of 2019, The Buffalo History Museum debuted its featured exhibit, History Makers. Inside, guests discovered the stories of eighteen of our community’s most notable or impactful men and women paired with objects and portraits illuminating their story. Three years later, the Museum premiered part two of this series. Featured subjects include John Albright, Glenn Curtiss, Winifred Stanley, William Wells Brown, William Fargo and more than a dozen additional figures from the 18th, 19th, a...

While a student at Buffalo’s Park School in 1975, Charles Hahn chose to photograph West Chippewa Street for a school project. Today—nearly fifty years later—his photos of  of the street, its scenes and people, stand in marked contrast to the highly developed entertainment district we know today and call attention to our not-so-distant past. The display also features present-day photos that offer a “then and now” contrast of one of Buffalo’s most recognizable streets. Join us for this exhibit tha...

We were asked a few times for a list of alleys in the city of Buffalo and we didn't have one. Nor could we find one. So we compiled our own. Here is a list of over 160 of them with sources.

This collection contains survey sheets, data sheets, and some photos from the Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier’s surveys of the Allentown area in 1970, and the New York State Division for Historic Preservation in 1974. A list of streets surveyed is included in the box and folder list. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

Collection includes General order books, 1872-1878, 1885-1892, 1902-1906; telegraph blotter, 1883-1884; board of police minutes, 1915-1916; and two scrapbooks, ca. 1934-1948. Inventory is online at Empire Archival Discovery,

The 100th New York Regiment broke camp at Fort Porter in 1862 to join the Army of the Potomac in the Civil War; it originally numbered approximately 1,000 men. The regiment reunited annually, often together with Peter A. Porter's 8th N.Y. Heavy Artillery regiment. The inventory of their records is online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

The Buffalo History Museum is pleased to debut a new exhibit by Jackie Albarella, “Artifacts: Burchfield Themed Photographs." The exhibit includes a series of 16” by 20” photographs Albarella captured that feature collages of ephemera she assembled from renowned watercolorist Charles Burchfield’s life, including paper items, found objects, natural elements and other memorabilia. Albarella will also display some of the collage items. Ms. Albarella grew up next to Burchfield in West Seneca, then m...

The Buffalo History Museum's fall program series, Happy Hour History, will continue through Dec. 21. The Wednesday night lecture and event series features local and regional historians speaking on a variety of topics, as well as documentary screenings sponsored by WNED. Beer and wine will be available for purchase at each event. Admission for the program series is $5 per event unless otherwise noted, and free for members. Each program starts at 6 p.m. and the Museum will remain open until 8 p.m....

Was your ancestor present in the Temple of Music on September 6, 1901, the day that President William McKinley was shot at the Pan-American Exposition? Here is our best attempt, using period and secondary sources, to identify as many people as possible who were present at critical events from the day McKinley was shot to the day of his funeral.

By now, everyone who has ever nibbled on chicken wings prepared in a particular style knows their origin story: in 1964, at the Anchor Bar, Teressa Bellissimo cut some wings in half, deep fried them, tossed them in hot sauce, and served them at the bar with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing. A star was born. Today, Buffalo is not just a city, it is a flavor applied to just about anything: snack foods, cauliflower, shrimp, pasta salad, mac & cheese, hamburgers, stuffed mushrooms, and eve...

The Buffalo History Museum is pleased to present "Hodinöhsö:ni’ Resurgence: Marie Watt, Calling Back, Calling Forward," which runs until October 30, 2022. Celebrated artist Marie Watt (Hodinöhsö:ni’, Seneca Nation) has roots in the Buffalo area. Her family grew up in Cattaraugus territories, now part of Seneca Nation. In this exhibition, Watt and her collaborators work to amplify the resurgence of Hodinöhsö:ni’ Peoples in the region. Inside the museum, visitors will find Watt’s monumental textil...

On March 6, 1930, little Henri Marchand, Jr. came home to 576 Riley Street in Buffalo to discover the lifeless body of his mother Clothilde Marchand on the stairs. What parts did Henri Marchand Sr., the husband of Clothilde, and Lila Jimerson and Nancy Bowen, two indigenous women, play in this murder? This bibliography accompanies our Hodinöhsö:ni’ Resurgence: Marie Watt, Calling Back, Calling Forward exhibit. Illustration of Henri Marchand, Jr. and Clothilde Marchand from The Buffalo Evening...

Renowned Seneca artist Marie Watt and a co-creative team are testing the possibilities of Indigenous “resurgence,” the action of reestablishing Indigenous power and presence, at our museum.

Sometimes you just can't get to Buffalo to look at offline material in person, in our collection or elsewhere. If that's the case, here is our list of Researchers For Hire. These individuals are self-employed, set their own rates & fees, and work independently of the Museum. Some do genealogy; some do house history; some have other areas of expertise. Listing here does not imply an endorsement or guarantee. Icon courtesy of thenounproject.com.

If you have spent much time in Buffalo, you may have wondered how our fair city got its name. This is a question that authors, researchers, prominent citizens, and ordinary people have been trying to answer for almost as long as Buffalo has been a point on a map. Reasonable people have adopted and defended various theories as their favorites, picking their team and rooting for it ever after. [caption id="attachment_24290" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Aerial Photo of City Hall, 1941, taken fr...

Judson Price still remembers the joy he felt when he saw thousands of community members fill Jefferson Avenue for Buffalo’s first Juneteenth Festival in 1976. There was “enthusiasm galore” and the city had never seen anything like it, Price, 91, said. Block after block of Jefferson featured vendors and entertainment stages filled with jazz, art, street theater, dance, and poetry slams. More than one dozen drill teams, bugle corps, and marching units promenaded down the street in the first Junete...

The targeted mass shooting in Tops supermarket on May 14, 2022, allegedly by a white supremacist, exposed the reality of a predominantly Black neighborhood made vulnerable by decades of disinvestment, deindustrialization, redlining, racism, and segregation. This bibliography features scholarship on the history of Buffalo’s East side.

Just in time for the return of summer, The Buffalo History Museum is bringing back evening hours and special events on M&T Third Fridays! From a special talk with the Executive Director on our new Pan-American exhibit to the return of our Party on the Portico concert series, kick off your weekends this summer by joining us at the museum. Friday, May 20 at 6 p.m.: Pan-Am Weekend KickoffJoin us for the return of Pan-Am Weekend and discover images of Buffalo’s Pan-American Exposition  as you’ve...

On the far eastern end of Grand Island, a small roadside plaque commemorates the planned Jewish colony from two centuries ago that never came to be. Motorists driving by this stretch of East River Road, filled with apartment complexes, a cemetery, and a Radisson hotel, might easily miss this extraordinary piece of history if they weren’t looking for it. “ARARAT: PROPOSED SITE OF MORDECAI NOAH’S ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH A CITY OF REFUGE FOR THE JEWS OF THE WORLD ON 2555 ACRES OF LAND IN 1825,” the si...

In 1847, a law requiring the registration of vital records was enacted by the New York State legislature.  The vital records were to be registered in the towns and most towns complied, at least for the year 1847. But either because of lack of interest or enforcement by the State, compliance quickly diminished and in 1851 the law was repealed. Here is a list of Erie County births, marriages, and deaths from those surviving records. Many thanks to the Western New York Genealogical Society for firs...

This guide lists our most significant collections related to civil rights activist Mary B. Talbert (1866-1923): some family papers and photographs, plus online and offline published sources. We added links where available.

Created in coordination with Erie County’s bicentennial celebration, Continuum offers a glimpse into our region’s history—a history dating back thousands of years.

Buffalo has a long and rich labor history. This list features books, periodicals, archival material, and photographs photographs associated with Buffalo-area workers, trade unions, strikes, and employee associations. These items are all in the library collection. This list is at WorldCat.

This map from 1963 depicts in a general way where various immigrant and ethnic groups settled in Buffalo. It was drawn by Dr. Stephen Gredel, a curator on our staff, for an exhibit called People of Our City and County. It is likely that Dr. Gredel relied on maps made for the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority in 1935.

Here in full color are the 3 volumes of Mabel Barnes' handwritten scrapbooks (Mss. W-119) chronicling her nineteen visits to the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. Mabel (1877-1946) was a schoolteacher at Fosdick-Masten Park High School (now City Honors). She took copious notes, collected souvenirs, and compiled these three diaries between 1905 and 1914. Many thanks to W.S. Hein for carefully scanning these volumes. Portrait of Mabel Barnes courtesy of City Honors High School.

This is a guide to what we have for researching Black Rock during the village era, 1795-1854. We listed censuses, church records, newspapers, and more. Links have been added when available.

This is a list of plans & drawings by the North & Shelgren architectural firm, which was active in the Buffalo area and beyond in the 20th century. They designed multiple churches in Western New York. Projects are listed in order by state, then city or town. These drawings are in offsite storage and are not digitized or online. They may be seen by appointment. Folder illustration courtesy of MaxPixel.net.

A list of weddings performed in Williamsville, NY, from 1841 to 1884, by Timothy Hopkins, a Justice of the Peace. Scanned from a carbon copy of a typed list in the Hopkins Family Papers, Mss. A70-28, folder 3. Portrait of Timothy Hopkins from Smith, Henry P., History of the City of Buffalo and Erie County (1884)...vol. 1, p. 411.

Industries of Buffalo came out in 1887 and features short profiles of hundreds of businesses in Buffalo, including manufacturers, retailers, railroads, hotels, banks, and more. Before it was digitized courtesy of Archive.org, we indexed it. Here's a list of all of those businesses.

The one thing that all name theorists agree on is that Buffalo the city takes its name from Buffalo Creek, now called the Buffalo River. The debate revolves around how the creek was named. We identified seven theories about the origin of Buffalo's name. We present each theory here on its own page in a Google sheet, with evidence in favor and opposed, and sources. The one true answer may never be established, so we added our own plausibility rankings. You can also view the entire document as a PD...

Our new podcast is the premier audio source for Western New York history. Every two weeks, we'll share a new and unique story from local history. The podcast is part of The Buffalo History Museum's Project EOS, which is made possible by support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Recordings of our webinars, tours of exhibits, features on artifacts and collections, performers on our portico, appearances from local authors, messages from our staff and Executive Director, and more. We have over 85 videos loaded here.

Back around 1983 when the records of multiple Buffalo-area Episcopal pastors and parishes were originally microfilmed, the result was incoherent and almost unusable. We studied the film and wrote a detailed table of contents to help you navigate it. That microfilm has been scanned and is now fully online courtesy of FamilySearch.org. The link is in our guide.

Our Obituary Index is now online, courtesy of FamilySearch.org. This card file has about 95,000 names. In 1985, the LDS Church microfilmed the entire file and now those films are online. You will be prompted to register for a free FamilySearch account if you don't already have one. You'll then be able to read through index cards just like if you were in our library.

We consulted three sources to compile this map of 20th century Buffalo Black-owned businesses: The Negro Motorist Green Books, 1938-1966 The Negro Directory of the Niagara Frontier, 1958 Metro Buffalo's Black Co-op Pages, 1986 The Green Books are online in full text courtesy of the New York Public Library. The Negro Directory is now online at our Archive.org page. The Metro Buffalo directory can be viewed in hard copy in our Library.

Fifty Years of Conservation of Cultural Heritage and Art in Western New York features the Museum and Buffalo State’s Garman Art Conservation Department work as a collaborative display of many of the objects that have undergone conservation treatment.

In 2018 and 2019, the Buffalo History Museum hosted a four-part workshop series on the nonfiction publishing process.  Collected here are videos of each workshop, with all of the course handouts and slide shows.

Our dedicated volunteers compiled a name index to the List of Prizes and here it is. There are over 3,600 entries in A-Z order by surname and company or country name. Several exhibitors earned more than one award. Spellings represent our best guess when looking at pages with illegible areas and non-English names. Corrections welcome.

White House Western New York features newspapers and artifacts that capture moments in WNY history related to presidential figures of the past.

For this page, we collected 250 Buffalo Firsts in these three categories: Demographic, such as the first woman who did X Inventions, such as Buffalo-style chicken wings Occurrences in Buffalo of things already invented, such as the first school We add to it from time to time. Graphic by By Oldbeeg, Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 at Wikimedia Commons

Essays by staff experts about collections, artifacts, research techniques, museum activities, and historical events. Newly redesigned, with fresh content on the way! Older articles are here. Clip art courtesy of PublicDomainVectors.org.

Here are 548 names drawn from Patrick Kavanagh's In Remembrance Of, a scrapbook of obituaries and news articles about servicemen and women from Western New York who lost their lives serving in the Vietnam War, compiled in 2015. His scrapbook is not online but he granted permission for us to digitize the index. Illustration courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net.

We thought it would answer some frequent Pan-Am questions to develop charts of everything on the grounds: buildings, gardens, canals, sculpture, and Midway attractions, with their designers/promoters,  pictures where available, and a note about their fate, if we could establish it. Check out the page on hotels & lodgings, of which there were at least 230. This project is ongoing and we fill in blanks when we can. Bird's Eye View courtesy of Wikimedia.

Thomas Farnham (1809-1883) kept a handwritten record of the passing of Buffalo's earliest residents, with biographical notes. It grew to be over 600 pages long and is now in our collection. He twice published name & death date lists from of his manuscript in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. We used those two published lists to compile this index of the people he kept track of. There are over 900 names and death dates here. Farnham tombstone image courtesy of Phyllis Meyer at FindAGrave.com...

A guide to sources documenting how Buffalo responded to the flu pandemic of 1918-1919. Includes a copy of the City quarantine notice. Links have been added where available.

Back when we were the Buffalo Historical Society, we released this edition (v. 16 of our Publications, 1912) of 400 photographs and renderings of Buffalo, most of which were from the 19th century. The volume is now in the public domain and has been digitized by Google Books. You are free to use the images as you see fit.

Researching your house is popular in Buffalo. But if no one before you studied and wrote up your house's history, then how do you figure it out? This grid shows you what we consult to answer the five most common questions people have about their houses or any other building in Buffalo: When it was built, who built it, who designed it, who lived in it, and what it looked like.

The 1828 Buffalo directory was the first city directory published in what was then the village of Buffalo. In 1876, the Courier Company published a directory for Buffalo and included a reprint of the 1828 directory in the back. We are grateful to the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library for digitizing the 1876 directory and granting us permission to download the 1828 page scans and reassemble that first directory for you. It is online in full text.

Based on newspaper articles and other sources from the period, here are about 900 sites in Buffalo and Erie County raided by federal authorities during the early years of Prohibition, 1920-1923. Map points are color-coded by type of building.

The Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative (EADC) is a new shared venture where libraries and archives are uploading guides to our offline, archival collections. At this link, you can browse the 50 finding aids, collection guides, and inventories that we have contributed so far, and search across everything added by other institutions in NY state.

This project is based on our map of the Pan-American overlaid with today's streets [PDF]. We highlighted in yellow the New York State Building, which became the home of The Buffalo History Museum in 1902, and the Temple of Music, where President McKinley was assassinated. The UB Libraries then took our map and built it into an interactive site with aerial photos and images of the major buildings, calling it A Guide to Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition.

These pages are digital scans of the microfilmed cemetery records from St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church in Black Rock. St. Francis Xavier Cemetery is located on Niagara Street next to Riverside Park. This list was compiled ca. 1982 and omits subsequent burials.

Here are 409 pages of the Buffalo Town Meeting proceedings, also called the Town Book, scanned from the microfilm version in our library. Town meetings were held annually and covered topics such as elections, roads and highways, finances and schools. Between town meetings, other reports given to the Town Clerk were recorded. This includes slave affidavits given by Isaac F. Bowman (p. 3), and Peter B. and Letitia P. Porter (p. 93); stray animal notices; and earmark records regarding animal owners...

If you were to read just one work on each of Buffalo’s major ethnic, racial, religious, or cultural populations, here are some suggestions. We chose histories, studies, and memoirs for this list. Every item is available in our library and some are online in full text. Illustration courtesy of Wikimedia.

A compilation of fatalities in Buffalo's three cholera epidemics, compiled by Dr. Glenice Guthrie in 2007 and shared here with her permission. Names are listed in approximate chronological order.

A Google map showing locations, or approximate locations, of cemeteries and burial grounds, past and present, in Buffalo and Erie County, NY. Includes name changes and links to records, if known.  Always remember to verify rights of access and cemetery rules before visiting any burial location. In New York State, access to cemeteries on private land requires the permission of the property owner.

Wilbur Porterfield was a staff photographer at the Buffalo Courier-Express newspaper. This collection is comprised of over 7,600 black & white landscapes and cityscapes, nearly all in Western New York. They are boxed in order by broad subject categories, as shown in the Classification column. Each photograph is individually listed. They are not digitized or online and can be viewed in person.

George Cary is best remembered today as the architect who designed the New York State building at the Pan-American Exposition, the home of The Buffalo History Museum ever since 1902, and the Administration building of the Pierce-Arrow factory. This is a list of his photos, plans, and drawings in our collection. The plans & drawings are stored off-site and may be seen by appointment. Cary portrait courtesy of Wikipedia.

When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, it transformed Buffalo into an economic powerhouse. The largest collection of archival Erie canal records, including construction and administration, is in the New York State Archives. Most of what we happened to collect is published material such as books and pamphlets. This list is at WorldCat.

Pearce & Pearce was a company that built a lot of post-war suburban houses and a few commercial developments in Tonawanda, Amherst & Clarence. In 2017, we acquired their business records. If you own a Pearce & Pearce house, we may have the original paperwork from your home. Here's an index of the addresses for which we have files.

Learn about Buffalo’s social movements with the artifacts below.

Superfan! combines Buffalo sports, local art, and history in a unique way.

Listed here are books, dissertations, pamphlets, scrapbooks, and even a few magazine articles and pieces of sheet music in our collection. Our Pan-Am photographic collections & albums are listed but not digitized, so an in-person visit is needed to see them. Not listed are our many Pan-Am drawings, posters, maps, and ephemera such as souvenirs, ticket stubs, brochures, and envelopes. This list is at WorldCat.

The Pan-American Exposition Company was incorporated under the Pan-American bill signed by Governor Theodore Roosevelt on Jan. 20, 1899. The bill became Chapter 2 of the New York State laws of 1899. The inventory of this collection can be viewed at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative. Stock certificate courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

A detailed and thorough spreadsheet of feature films, documentaries, and television productions either filmed or set in the Buffalo area. We are still adding to it. Illustration courtesy of Pixhere.com.

Includes the addresses, years of operation, and some of the owners during the years when these clubs were in business. Researched and developed by Kanisha Greaves, student intern in the Research Library, Fall 2012.

Movies, TV shows, scripts, plays, musicals, all chosen because the story was set in the Buffalo area or the production was filmed in the Buffalo area. Includes documentary films as well as feature films, plus works on Buffalo theater buildings. All of these items are in the Library collection of The Buffalo History Museum. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Marian de Forest earned fame far beyond the local scene for her work as a playwright and author. She is best known as the author of Little Women, a dramatic adaptation of the story of the same name by Louisa May Alcott. Little Women was completed in 1911, had stage productions in Buffalo and elsewhere, and received rave reviews on the New York stage in 1912. Perhaps more significantly, the play served as the vehicle for Katharine Cornell's rise to acting stardom in the London stage production in...

Selected period photographs from the beloved amusement park in Fort Erie, Ontario.  Now online at NYHeritage.org.

Once a town in Erie County, Black Rock was annexed by the City of Buffalo in 1854. Today it is a neighborhood in the northwest part of Buffalo, proudly retaining its identity 150 years later. All items listed here are in our library. This list is at WorldCat.

Digitized by the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site as part of an initiative sponsored by the Theodore Roosevelt Center in North Dakota, this is the scrapbook compiled by Ansley Wilcox in 1901. Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office in Wilcox's mansion after the assassination of President William McKinley. The original scrapbook remains in our collection. Portrait of Wilcox courtesy of Wikipedia.

President Cleveland's presidential papers are in the Library of Congress. When they microfilmed them, we acquired a set of the films. Those films are now fully digitized and online. Here is a searchable index of his papers, featuring the names of people with whom he corresponded. You can check and see if your Buffalo ancestors are among them.

According to his biographers, period newspaper accounts, and Buffalo city directories, this map shows places where Grover Cleveland worked (blue pins), lived (red pins) or dined, visited, spent leisure time, gave speeches, etc. (yellow pins). Extant buildings & sites are marked with stars. Here's a chronological list of his home addresses in Buffalo, with links to pictures where available.

Starting with James Monroe in 1818, a lot of U.S. presidents have visited Buffalo as candidates, during their terms, or after they left office. Here is our list. The illustration is courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net.

Several claims have been published recently about Buffalo places where Grover Cleveland lived or liked to hang out. Are they true?

Grover Cleveland's presidential papers are in the Library of Congress. When they microfilmed them, we acquired a set of the films. They have now completed a full digitization of those microfilms.

Fillmore's papers are on 68 rolls of microfilm. This guide explains what is on each roll. To the best of our knowledge, the microfilms have not been digitized.

In September 1901, William McKinley traveled to Buffalo, NY to tour the Pan American Exposition. While shaking hands in the Temple of Music on September 6, he was shot by Leon Czolgosz. He died on September 14, 1901, whereupon Theodore Roosevelt was summoned to Buffalo and hastily inaugurated. Czolgosz was found guilty and was executed on October 29, 1901. Shown here are books and manuscript material in our library. This list is at WorldCat.

In case you missed it at the Museum's home page, here's a shortcut to our popular On This Day calendar, which refreshes every day to show you major and minor anniversaries in the Buffalo area. You can move forward and backward in it by clicking on the pointing fingers. The original Google calendar version can be viewed here. Image courtesy of Pickpik.com.

When Jane Woodward published her 1971 book, Men of Medicine in Erie County, it lacked an index. In 1982, Sharon Keller produced an index. The book is offline but here is the index. The book covers not only prominent physicians, but the history of hospitals, epidemics, and medical advances in Buffalo and Erie County, NY. Illustration from Buffalo Medical Journal, 1914.

Dr. Adeline Levine (1926-2015), a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo from 1968 to 1990, studied the sociological aspects of the Love Canal disaster. She donated her papers to us in 1994. The inventory of this extensive collection is now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative. Photo courtesy of the New York State Department of Health.

Short, readable booklets on 25 important topics in Buffalo history, including the Buffalo grain elevators, the Pan-American Exposition, and Erie County in the Civil War. All online in full text.

Browse full-text back issues of The Album, our colorful member newsletter, which is issued quarterly and features artifacts, events, and photos. To get free online delivery of new issues of The Album, we invite you to join as a member of the Museum.

Listed here are atlases that show individual buildings or land owner names in Buffalo and Erie County, with links for those which have been digitized. These atlases are key for house & building research. Sanborn map of Lafayette Square courtesy of the Library of Congress.

An illustrated pamphlet with scenes of museum interiors & exhibits. It was published in 1930 to commemorate the expansion of our original 1901 building. Architect George Cary (1859-1945) designed the building and the additions. Library call number F116 .B83 B84 1930.

From 1897 to 1947, we published 34 lengthy volumes of regional history scholarship. Google & others digitized most of them. We collected the links here in chronological order so you can read them online. This series includes the ever popular Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo (1912) and a wealth of essays on the Holland Land Company, the War of 1812, Native Americans, Millard Fillmore, the Erie Canal, and much more.

From our 7,000 or so postcards, we selected and scanned some rare cards that we haven't already seen online, with historical notes on each one. This project is online at NYHeritage.org.

This map shows historic markers in Buffalo and Erie County that have been submitted to the Historic Marker Database as of July 2023.

Over 4,000 vintage Buffalo-area images from our collection are available as home or office decor, keepsakes, and high-resolution digital downloads. All proceeds support the care and housing of Museum collections.

We have several Powerpoint talks and tutorials online here: Genealogy, House History, Women Architects, Hispanic History, and planning your first visit to our library.

Tagpacker.com is a social bookmarking tool. We use it to keep track of useful websites for Buffalo-area history & genealogy. We have over 1,500 links sorted into easy-to-understand categories or "tags." We add links all the time.

There is nothing like a good bibliography to open your eyes to books and articles that you never knew existed on your research topic. The bibliographies listed here all have something to do with Buffalonians or the Buffalo/Niagara area. We also added indexes and inventories to major local manuscript collections. This list is at WorldCat.

A Google Doc listing all of the Buffalo-area newspapers we have on microfilm, starting in 1811 and ending in 2012. Our Buffalo  newspapers from 1811 to 1963 are now online at Newspapers.com, which you may use for free when you are in our building. A few links have been added for free digitized Buffalo newspapers.

The Buffalo History Museum has been collecting visual material of all kinds ever since we were founded in 1862.  We have an estimated 200,000 images sorted into about 100 specialized collections.  Nearly all of these collections focus on the people, places, things, and events of the Buffalo/Niagara area.  This guide describes our major photographic collections, which are mostly undigitized and offline.

Anson Conger Goodyear (1877-1964) collected letters and documents from the period and donated them to us. An inventory of his collection is now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative. Map courtesy of the Library of Congress

This list doesn't include every possible source that mentions Buffalo, NY, but it does lead you to the most important ones about how Buffalo, Black Rock, and both sides of the Niagara River experienced the War of 1812. All of the items listed here are in the Library collection. This list is at WorldCat.

We are often asked to verify if someone won a medal at the Pan-American Exposition. About 4,500 awards, medals, and honors were bestowed at the Pan-Am. Here is the only list that we know of, originally published in the Buffalo Morning Express, October 10, 1901. Awards are listed in order by category, not surname. This PDF is the most legible copy we could make.

Church records are often the only surviving proof of births, marriages, and deaths from before the advent of government-issued vital records. We have a large collection of Buffalo-area church records on microfilm and in print. Some are being digitized, nearly all by FamilySearch.org. We add links when we find them. Image from Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo, p. 106.

An online slide show/tutorial about what to expect if you plan a family history research trip to our Library. Illustration courtesy of Wikimedia.

A brief overview of our most popular and useful genealogy resources: censuses; church records; city directories; death, obituary and cemetery records; marriage indexes; military service indexes; social directories; telephone directories; and voter registration lists. Links have been added where available. Image courtesy of PublicDomainVectors.org

A list of of the best books for those researching ancestors and family history in Buffalo and Erie County, NY. Omitted are single-name books, microfilms, and other non-book items. Some titles appear twice because of being issued in different editions or versions. We tried to focus on works available in Buffalo area libraries, but some are owned only by out-of-town libraries. This list is at WorldCat.

These are the only items in our collection that identify children by name in any of Buffalo’s orphanages.  They are not digitized or online and must be used in person. The links provide greater bibliographic detail about each source. Image courtesy of Pickpik.com.

The papers of James A. Roberts; Frank S. Sidway; the  Sidway, Skinner & Moore firm; and Elbridge G. Spaulding. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

Selected documents and images from our collections, designed to transport you back to Buffalo in the 1830s.

Selections from our vast War of 1812 holdings, including original and published letters, journals, artist's conceptions, diaries, scrapbooks, reminiscences, news clippings, and other ephemera.

Digitized by Library volunteer Brenda Myc, MLS, these maps were selected from an atlas which documented poverty and slum conditions in Buffalo during the Great Depression. Individual maps show the distribution of ethnic and immigrant groups; the density of population; the incidence of crime, juvenile delinquency, and venereal disease; and other social conditions. Maps also show Buffalo ward boundaries and councilmanic districts. Several are hand-colored. Here is the report that accompanies these...

Here are black & white scans of over 300 pages of handwritten notes on the soldiers admitted to the Williamsville Hospital during the War of 1812. The original register is in the collection of the U.S. National Archives. Here is their record of the collection. Scans were acquired and shared with us by the Cheektowaga Historical Association.

A list of about 150 names transcribed from a small, handwritten card file giving places of burial, plus a checkmark indicating if we have a photocopy of the veteran's pension file.

Listed here are books and manuscripts in our library about how the Buffalo, NY area experienced and participated in the first World War. This list is at WorldCat.

Muster rolls, histories, diaries, and other official and personal papers concerning various New York regiments and naval operations, including the 3rd, 20th, 21st, 49th, 94th, 100th, 116th and 179th Infantry; 11th and 12th Cavalry; 1st Light Artillery (Wiedrich's Battery), 12th Light Artillery, 27th Light Artillery (Eaton's Battery), and 16th Heavy Artillery, as well as some non-New York military units. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

The largest collection of records and archival material from the WPA is in the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C.  Their papers are not digitized or online, so an in-person visit is needed to view their files.  This guide is devoted to what is in our library. Includes Public Works Administration (PWA) projects. Links have been added where available. Poster courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Buffalo suffered several outbreaks of cholera. In 1854, Dr. James Newman kept a ledger of the deaths that occurred in Buffalo, which is now in our collection. Here is an index of about 1,000 names in that ledger, compiled and shared by Dr. Roseanne Higgins. Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

George Washington Jonson (sometimes misspelled Johnson), a Buffalo lawyer, land agent, and abolitionist, kept detailed diaries for most of his adult life. His citizen activism included work with the Underground Railroad, opposition to debtor's prisons, and participation in the movement to impeach President Andrew Johnson.  We have several of his diaries. Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Odd local book titles that amuse us and weird stuff that has been published here. This list is at WorldCat.

Civil rights, labor strikes, riots, anti-war movements, socialism, communism, activism, reform, and protest of all kinds in the Buffalo, NY area.  Everything listed here is in our library. This list is at WorldCat.

Includes works by and about notable and ordinary women, including organizations, biographies, suffrage, professions, and more. We're limited to 500 items on these lists, so we have more than we were able to include. This list is at WorldCat.

In September 2014, we unveiled our first-ever exhibit on Hispanic history in Buffalo. The original exhibit panel designs from Echando Raices are shown here. Many thanks to Mr. Casimiro Rodriguez and the Hispanic Heritage Council for their assistance.

Born on the Allegany Reservation in 1810, Pierce graduated from Dartmouth, making him one of the first Seneca Indians to get a college education. After college, he settled on the Buffalo Creek Reservation and fought against the removal of Seneca from their lands. All 800+ of his letters and papers are now digitized. We believe they are among the oldest surviving personal papers of a Native person in the United States.

Listed here are books, manuscripts, theses, and dissertations about African-American history in our collection, featuring biographies, autobiographies, organizations, activism, professions, and socioeconomic conditions. This list is at WorldCat.

Listed here are books, manuscripts, theses, and dissertations about Buffalo-area Hispanics & Latinos/Latinas in the library collection. This list is at WorldCat.

Listed here are fiction and nonfiction items in our library that have to do with Irish-Americans, Buffalo's Old First Ward, and South Buffalo. This list is at WorldCat.

The Buffalo History Museum has been collecting materials that document the first occupants of this land ever since we were founded in 1862. This is an extensive list. We add links when we find any of these works online in full text. Illustration of wampum from Extra Census Bulletin: Indians: The Six Nations of New York (1892), p. 48.

There is no published book-length history of the Underground Railroad in Buffalo, NY. The closest we have is books and articles about the Niagara Frontier and upstate/western New York in general, which are listed here. This bibliography features works owned by the Buffalo History Museum plus works owned by institutions other than us.  This list is at WorldCat.

Published from 1883-1915, these directories list middle & upper income households, with a reverse address section that lists streets in A-Z order, mostly on the West side, with the residents of each house.  These directories might help you determine when your house was built.

In 1901, the Charity Organization Society of Buffalo published a map showed the location of every church in Buffalo, NY. Intern Peter Malia replicated that map here. Churches are color-coded by denomination. We added some pictures and links to surviving church records.

A list of over 6,000 names of adults who settled in Buffalo, mostly prior to 1840. Be sure to click on Sources, which shows where we found these names. We add names from time to time if we find a good list. Illustration from Pioneer History of the Holland Land Purchase, 1849.

The Buffalo History Museum has ledgers from two Buffalo funeral directors, Henry Farwell and Theophilus Speyser. This is an A-Z list of everyone they recorded in their ledgers, over 3,100 names from 1883 to 1899. These are our only funeral home records.

Telephone directories, city directories, suburban directories, social directories, business directories, alumni directories, church directories, employee & professional directories, nonprofit & cultural organization directories, membership rosters, we like 'em all. All of the items on this list can be found in hard copy in our Research Library. This list is at WorldCat.

A list of the cemetery records in our collection, in A-Z order by name of cemetery. We added links to those we have found online. Image courtesy of Piqsels.com.

We have all surviving federal and state censuses for Buffalo and Erie County and they are on microfilm. This is a list of print indexes to those censuses. This list is at WorldCat.

M.H. Birge & Sons was known for the quality of its wallpaper and for the artistry that characterized it. Local landscape artists were hired to paint and develop the original prints. The best known of these, Charles E. Burchfield, designed landscapes in the mid-1920s that depicted the wildlife and scenic beauty of Western New York. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

Buffalo Corrugated Container was founded in 1910 by William A. and Harley N. Sickler, and Charles G. Moore, as a manufacturer and seller of corrugated paper and paper board containers and packing boxes. The company was located at 25-39 Imson Street, Buffalo, N.Y. We have their tax and insurance records, 1912-1947. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative

Listed here are manuscripts and primary sources, mainly internal records of companies and firms, in the library collection. Unfortunately, most businesses come and go without their records being saved. Employee or personnel records are rarely if ever retained. This list is at WorldCat.

Behemoth concrete silos still line the Buffalo waterfront, monuments from the years when Buffalo was one of the largest grain ports in the world. All items listed here are in the library collection and focus on grain elevators, grain scoopers, and Buffalo's flour milling & feed industry.

Joseph Ellicott (1760-1826) is considered the founder of Buffalo, NY. As an agent of the Holland Land Company, he supervised land sales to the first settlers of Western New York. Listed here are books and manuscripts in the library collection about the Holland Land Company, including Joseph Ellicott and his family.

Founded by John D. Larkin in 1875, the Larkin Company started out as a soap factory and became a mail-order house to rival Sears & Roebuck, selling furniture, china, groceries, paint, wallpaper, and dry goods. Largely defunct by the end of the Great Depression, Larkin is best remembered today for hiring a young Frank Lloyd Wright to design its Administration Building, an architectural landmark that was demolished in 1950. Featured here are books, theses, dissertations, manuscripts, company r...

In 1806, Augustus Porter moved his family to Niagara Falls and developed a business interest, with his brother Peter B. Porter, Benjamin Barton, and Joseph Annin. They purchased a large tract of land from the State of New York, adjacent to and above Niagara Falls. They had exclusive rights of transporting various goods and services across this acreage. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative

Peter Buell Porter (1773-1844) was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician who served as U.S. Secretary of War from 1828 to 1829. He had extensive land and business interests in Buffalo, Black Rock, and Niagara Falls. This is a guide to the microfilmed version of his papers. Collection includes correspondence, minutes, receipts, maps, deeds, surveys, slave extradition papers, pension and bounty papers, provision contracts, and boundary survey material. Portrait of Porter from Pioneer History...

Names of 1,025 inmates at the Erie County Penitentiary from 1896 to 1914. The majority of the pictures date from 1899-1905. The photographs have warped over the years, are not digitized or online, and may be seen by visiting in person. A Scholar Pass is required to use this collection.

From the early 19th century to the present, here are nonfiction accounts of crimes, scandals, law enforcement, prisons, jails, hearings, court cases, and trials, both civil and criminal, in the Buffalo/Niagara area. All of the items listed below are in the Library collection. This list is at WorldCat.

This collection includes Donovan's correspondence and printed material relating to Captain (later Colonel) Donovan's military service with the 1st Cavalry, New York National Guard, and then with the "Fighting 69th" New York Infantry in World War I; his legal career in Buffalo with O'Brian, Hamlin, Donovan & Goodyear; and his involvement with the American Legion, Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association, and Columbia University, circa 1915-1920. Correspondents include Douglas MacArthur. Invent...

In 1923-1924, the KKK had a short-lived chapter in Buffalo. Here is a list of members with a short essay on how the Klan managed to get a toehold on the Niagara Frontier.

Published in 1926, the 460-page Buffalo Artists' Register is essentially a biographical dictionary of local painters, sculptors, designers, architects, musicians, dancers, singers, actors, playwrights, photographers, poets, and teachers in these fields. What we are able to offer online is just the index, so you can look up specific names. Illustration from PublicDomainPictures.net.

To celebrate the centennial of women's suffrage in the US, we developed a map of over 100 sites in the Buffalo area associated with women's activities and achievements in business, education, politics, charities, the arts, and more. This map was begun by intern Amber Levias in 2019. We are still adding addresses.

It didn't make sense to separate out each topic when they're all related. This list includes works about alcoholic beverages of all kinds, malt houses, taverns, saloons, and liquor stores. All of the items listed here are in the library collection. This list is at WorldCat.

An alliance of women's clubs founded in 1905 as the Buffalo City Federation of Women's Clubs; name changed in 1939. Originally comprising 28 member clubs involved in civic activities "to further citizenship, education and philanthropy," the B.F.W.C. comprised some 71 member clubs by 1985. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

Collection of materials related to civil rights activism in the Buffalo area in the late 1960s and early '70s. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

Listed here are cookbooks, restaurant guides, and anything else related to recipes, banquets, cafes, grocery stores, bakeries, dairies, meat packers, confectioners, etc. All are in our library collection. The photographs listed here are not digitized and must be viewed in person. We also have a growing, uncataloged Buffalo-area menu collection.

Welcome to the first known bibliography of Buffalo's LGBTQ history! Listed here are books, periodicals, manuscripts, multi-media, and a few articles dealing with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender history and experience in Buffalo, NY, and the surrounding western/upstate New York area. These items are found in the collections of the Buffalo History Museum and libraries other than the Buffalo History Museum. This list is at WorldCat.

This slide show features current women architects in or from Buffalo, NY. We produced it in 2011 as part of an exhibit on Louise Bethune, America's first professional woman architect.

Drawn from primary and secondary sources in our collection, this Google spreadsheet shows the architect and date for 2,000 addresses in the Buffalo area.

Panel designs from an exhibit held from 2011-2012 on Louise Bethune, the first professional woman architect in America. Some objects on the panels were not available for online use. Many thanks to Brian McAlonie and Kelly Hayes McAlonie for co-curating this exhibit.

Many architects have practiced in Buffalo, NY, without their business records being saved. This list features promotional brochures, architectural plans, drawings, records, and selected photographs associated with Buffalo-area architects. These items are all in the library collection. This list is at WorldCat.

Bethune was the first professional woman architect in the United States. She is best known today for her Buffalo masterpiece, the Lafayette Hotel. This is a list of items in our library collection. Links have been added where available.

Records of the architectural firm of Esenwein & Johnson, including job contracts, specifications and plans, 1898-1940; records concerning lease of office space in Ellicott Square Building, 1897-1926; partnership with B. Frank Kelly, 1932; and bank records, employee tax records, account books and ledgers, 1910-1942. Includes plan of marble mosaic floor for Ellicott Square Building, designed by James A. Johnson and W.W. Kent, 1930. All were donated by Mr. Goehle, the firm's office manager. Inv...

Buffalo's most notable architectural firm, Green & Wicks (later E.B. Green & Son), was founded in 1881. They designed over 350 works throughout the Northeast, with a concentration of about 200 houses, banks, office buildings, churches, and public buildings in Buffalo, NY. The firm went through several changes in name and personnel and was called James, Meadow & Howard at the time it folded in 1974. This list features items owned by the Buffalo History Museum and libraries other than...

An online slide show/tutorial, newly revised and expanded.

These books form the core collection for anyone who wants to research a house, church, factory, or any other kind of building in the Buffalo, NY area. All are available in our library. This list is at WorldCat.

James, Meadows and Howard (JMH) originally began as the Green & Wicks architectural firm in 1884. The firm's designs included the Federal Reserve Bank on South Elmwood Avenue, and buildings in the Buffalo General Hospital and Children's Hospital complexes, Erie County Medical Center, and at the University of Buffalo. JMH was dissolved in 1974. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

This collection chiefly reflects the schools and other public buildings, office buildings, and church structures which were designed by Duane S. Lyman for clients in Buffalo and Western New York State. Included are proposals, plans, job descriptions, budget estimates, and photographs. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

Includes some of Darwin Martin's correspondence, plus incorporation records, financial records, sales summaries, advertisements and catalogs, employee guides, publications and inventories of the Larkin Company, Inc. of Buffalo, N.Y.; and Darwin Martin's scrapbook documenting the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. Inventory now online at the Empire Archival Discovery Cooperative.

Buffalo is home to Frederick Law Olmsted's first park system, an integrated network of parks and parkways. Shown here are items by Olmsted and about our region's Olmsted legacy. All are in the collection of our library. This list is at WorldCat.

Buffalo has more Wright-designed buildings than any other city except Chicago. The items listed here are in our library collection. This list is at WorldCat.

A thorough map of everyone we could find who was and is involved in the production of alcoholic beverages in Buffalo and Erie County. We color-coded the locations of 90 breweries, 60 malt houses, 60 distilleries, 7 wineries, and 15 cider houses, with logos for currently operating businesses.

A thorough map of all known Buffalo grain elevators, past and present, including elevators that were on land that has since been excavated to enlarge the Buffalo River.

This is one of 3 filmstrips produced by the Larkin Company around 1930 to recruit women to join Larkin buying clubs. Filmstrips were essentially the slide shows of the period, with black & white still images that were narrated by a live speaker.

Explore some paintings in our collection below.

Explore artifacts of the region’s Native Americans below.

Explore some of our military artifacts below.

Explore some of our artifacts related to immigration and immigrants below.

Explore artifacts related to the Erie Canal below.

Explore artifacts related to local industry below.

Explore artifacts from our collection related to local entertainment and toys below.

Learn about Buffalo’s sport history with the artifacts below.

Learn about the 1901 Pan-American Exposition with some artifacts from our collection below.

Inside Tim Russert’s Office captures the monumental legacy of the late journalist.

Relive pioneer life at The John R. Oishei Pioneer Gallery.

Our expansive model Train Gallery captures 1900s replica model trains.

The John R. Oishei Native American Gallery tells the region’s history through its first inhabitants.

Spirit of the City captures the various sides of the 1901 Pan American Exposition.

Street of Shops depicted 19th century Buffalo businesses.

Neighbors shares the stories of the various people of Buffalo and Erie County.

Icons shares the unique history of Buffalo’s professional sports teams.

From the most famous to the unknown, History Makers cataloged significant figures in Buffalo and Erie County’s history.

Emblem of Equality tells the region’s battle for equality at the ballot box.

Learn about local presidential history with artifacts from our collection below.

Explore local textiles with a selection of artifacts below.