The Project Gutenberg eBook, The New Wonder of the World: Buffalo, the Electric City, by A. E. Richmond This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: The New Wonder of the World: Buffalo, the Electric City Author: A. E. Richmond Release Date: August 24, 2020 [eBook #63027] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW WONDER OF THE WORLD: BUFFALO, THE ELECTRIC CITY*** E-text prepared by WebRover, Charlene Taylor, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/newwonderofworld00rich The New Wonder of the World, the Electric City. WITH COMPLIMENTS OF The Security Investment Company OF BUFFALO, N. Y. 156 AND 158 PEARL STREET, CORNER CHURCH STREET. CAPITAL, $300,000. DIRECTORS: Charles A. Sweet, President Third National Bank, Buffalo. John Satterfield, President Union Oil Company, Buffalo. Edmund Hayes, Of the Union Bridge Works, Buffalo. Hon. Charles Daniels, Ex-Judge Supreme Court, Buffalo. James H. Smith, Director of the Cary Safe Company, Buffalo. Walter G. Robbins, Vice-President Buffalo Fish Company, Buffalo. James R. Austin, Real Estate, Buffalo. James B. Stafford, Real Estate, Buffalo. Richard H. Stafford, Real Estate, Buffalo. Francis B. Thurber, President Thurber-Whyland Company, wholesale grocers, New York City. James E. Granniss, President The Tradesmen’s National Bank, New York City. John Loudon, Capitalist, Altoona, Pa. J. M. Guffey, Capitalist, Pittsburg, Pa. This Company furnishes the investor a safe and reliable channel through which he may place his money. Great care and judgment used before putting an investment on the market. Large and small investors will find it greatly to their advantage to examine the list of investments offered by this Company. Choice real estate a specialty. Bonds and mortgages and other first-class securities handled. THE NIAGARA CATARACT--SOURCE OF BUFFALO’S ELECTRIC POWER. THE NEW WONDER OF THE WORLD. BUFFALO: THE ELECTRIC CITY. B Y A. E. R ICHMOND. THE MATTHEWS-NORTHRUP CO., COMPLETE ART-PRINTING WORKS, BUFFALO, N. Y. 14298 COPYRIGHT, 1892 IAGARA’S voice sings a new song. Through countless ages it has thundered forth its wild, tumultuous melody, a pæan to nature in every tone. Now it sings an anthem to industry, to science, to inventive genius, to commercial prosperity. The magic wand of the electrician has been waved, and the mighty voice swells and roars to new music of new and marvelous power. The new song rising from the mist and the spray of the cataract heralds a new era in Buffalo. It heralds the evolution of the Queen City of the Lakes into the Electric City of the World; a smokeless, dustless, wholesome city where the myriad and ever-increasing wheels of industry will turn with the silent, unseen power generated from Niagara’s unceasing current; a city that will grow and attract and gather force and wealth and people until it comes to be known as the New Wonder of the World. hen the city of Buffalo, under the favoring conditions which have brought it to its present splendid eminence, doubles its population in ten years, and increases in wealth seven million dollars yearly, what can be foretold of it when in addition to all its present wealth-producing resources it becomes the possessor of an unlimited supply of the cheapest power in the whole world! Contemplating this fact, the Chicago Tribune said: “By virtue of having the cheapest power for turning its machinery, Buffalo will inevitably become the manufacturing centre of the nation.” The New York Tribune adds this weighty testimony to the greatness of our future: “The past of Buffalo is secure, and her manifest destiny is evidently to be something tremendous.” Already preparations are being made to bring to Buffalo the electric power from the great tunnel at Niagara Falls. Several companies have been formed of foremost business men, who see that in the distribution and application of the mighty power to industrial uses there are fortunes to be made, and that the pioneers in the task will win the chief prizes. The time for discussing the practicability of bringing electric power from Niagara Falls to Buffalo has gone by. Electrical science has settled the question completely. It has been demonstrated beyond all question that electric power can be transmitted long distances without material loss. A number of the greatest capitalists, and shrewdest investors in the United States, are financially interested in the tunnel scheme. Before they put up their money they satisfied themselves not only that the power could be produced, but that it could be sold. They looked at Buffalo, 22 miles away, and saw a city of nearly 300,000 inhabitants, spread over a large territory, with ample opportunity for territorial growth beyond the present limits, a city in which 3,000 new houses were built in the year 1891, and in which nearly one hundred million dollars is invested in industrial enterprises. They saw a city into which 26 lines of railroad enter, representing a total trackage of about 25,000 miles, and including the great trunk lines leading east, west, north and south, tapping all the rich raw-material storehouses of the continent at all points. They saw that Buffalo had extraordinary facilities for the distribution of manufactures by rail, facilities created by the hand of industry, and they saw too nature’s grand gift in the great chain of lakes, coupled to another gift of industry, the Erie canal, giving us a water route to the Atlantic seaboard. These men saw that here was the place where electric power could be disposed of in enormous quantities. They knew that they could send it here almost as cheaply as they could distribute it in the immediate vicinity of its point of production, and they saw the mighty certainties in a combination of unlimited cheap power for manufacturing and extraordinary shipping facilities. They knew that a market for their electrical product was forever assured, and they planted their millions in the earth and rock of Niagara. Better investment was never made. Read the names of some of the great financiers engaged in this enterprise: William K. Vanderbilt, Chauncey M. Depew, Drexel, Morgan & Co., August Belmont, Brown Bros. & Co., Isaac N. Seligman, Winslow, Lamer & Co., Morris K. Jessup and others famous in the financial world. OUR GREAT RAILROAD INTERESTS. Buffalo is one of the greatest railroad centers in the United States. Its advantages for bringing in raw material cheaply and quickly are unequalled. Its railroad arteries go forth in all directions, reaching the rich mines and fertile fields and levying upon the wealth of all; and for the distribution of manufactured products it occupies a commanding position unexcelled by any city in the country. And to all this must be added its peerless shipping facilities by lake and canal, coupled with the fact of its unique location at the point of transhipment between lake, canal and railroad. The railroad interests of Buffalo are larger than many residents of the city have any idea of. There are more miles of railroad tracks within the city limits than in any other city in the world. We have 660 miles of them. The railroads own over 3,600 acres of land in the city. Over one-tenth of the general city taxes levied in Buffalo is paid by the railroads. An army of over 20,000 men are steadily employed by the railroads in Buffalo. A great number of them own their own homes. With their families they are numerous enough to make a good-sized city of themselves. New industries are constantly being added to swell the bulk of railroad enterprises here. The locomotive shops of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad are among the latest. They will cost half a million dollars to build, and they will be equipped with the highest class of machinery, costing several hundred thousand dollars more. It is the intention within a few years to spend about two million dollars on these shops, making them the largest and best equipped locomotive shops in the United States, rivaling the Altoona shops, now the largest in the world. The building of the Gould Car Coupler Company’s works adds another to the long list of railroad supply shops located here, among which are the Wagner Palace Car Works, Buffalo Car Wheel Works, New York Car Wheel Works, Rood & Brown Car Wheel Works, all employing a large number of men. These are the kind of industries that anchor a city to prosperity forever. All this shows what a railroad center Buffalo is and what splendid facilities we have for receiving and sending by rail. THE LAKE AND ENTRANCE TO THE HARBOR. LAKE AND CANAL. From statistics of lake commerce, compiled by Charles H. Keep, secretary of the Lake Carriers’ Association, of Buffalo, it is learned that 30,299,006 tons of cargo were carried on the great lakes during the year 1890. Mr. Keep figures out that if all this tonnage were loaded into railroad cars of fifteen tons capacity, there would be a string of cars covering 13,466 miles of railroad tracks, or, in other words, four strings of cars from New York to San Francisco and enough left over to run two strings of cars from New York to Chicago. And most of this immense amount of tonnage came to Buffalo, or was shipped from Buffalo. “During the season of 1890,” he continues, “more than nine million tons of ore were moved by the lake route from the vicinity of the mines to the vicinity of the furnaces.” To give further proof of the immense volume of trade flowing to and from Buffalo, here are some comparative figures: During 1890 the amount of tonnage passing through the Suez canal was 6,890,094 tons, compared with 8,454,435 tons passing through the St. Mary’s Falls canal, and 21,684,000 tons passing through the Detroit River. In 1891, from April 1st to December 1st, the grain, including flour, discharged from vessels at the port of Buffalo, reached the stupendous amount of 164,459,720 bushels. In 1891 the total value of imports to Buffalo by canal was $27,942,213, and the total value of exports by canal the same year was $36,978,035. To handle this great volume of business 1180 boats were in use. GREAT GRAIN STOREHOUSES. There are 34 grain elevators in Buffalo, with a total capacity of 15,000,000 bushels, in addition to six floaters and six transfer elevators. These structures have a capacity for transferring 4,000,000 bushels every 24 hours. In 1891 they handled 135,315,510 bushels. Their total value is over $8,000,000. Several new elevators of giant size are planned. Two of them are estimated to cost a million dollars each. WHERE TRADE CONCENTRATES. Buffalo’s location is unique. It is the stopping off place between distant sections for men, animals, lumber, grain and general merchandise. The incidental business growing out of this fact is enormous. Grain, coal, iron, oil, lumber and other products of this great country gravitate toward Buffalo, and here they are sent to the mills, refineries and factories, or are transferred from boats to cars, or cars to boats, and sent east or west as the case may be. The grain receipts by lake at this port have more than tripled in the past ten years, reaching nearly 165,000,000 bushels in 1891. These shipments are bound to vastly increase as new stretches of country in the West and Northwest are opened up and tapped by railroad lines. The recent passage of the river and harbor appropriation bill, by which an expenditure of $4,000,000 is authorized in securing a twenty-foot channel for lake navigation, will result in still lower rates and greatly increased shipments by lake. The saving in lake freights over the average railroad rates in 1891 was about $150,000,000. Many of the largest coal trestles in the world are located here. This is the greatest coal distributing point in the world. Our coal trade is simply enormous. To give an indication of this, it is sufficient to quote the coal shipments by lake alone from Buffalo in 1891. They amounted to 2,365,895 tons, and the shipments by canal and rail were very large. A conservative estimate places the value of property used in the coal trade here at $10,000,000. This estimate, of course, does not include vessels engaged in the coal trade, nor railroad property outside of that actually devoted to the coal business. The lumber trade here is phenomenally large. This, of course, is to be expected, owing to our location at the foot of the great lakes. The rich lumbering districts bordering upon the lakes are tributary to us, and the consequence is that Buffalo and Tonawanda, which are practically one, receive and distribute immense quantities of lumber. This is, in fact, the greatest distributing point for lumber in the world. In addition to all this, we have the largest sheep market in the world, one of the largest horse markets in the world, and, next to Chicago, the largest cattle market in the world. THE WONDER OF THE WORLD. The facts given above are all drawn from compiled statistics of the city, and all show the splendid foundation that has been built for the vast city of the near future when the electric elixir from Niagara’s mighty power flows through all our commercial veins and arteries, cheapening the cost of production so that outside competition can be defied, building up every established enterprise, bringing numberless new ones into life, and making of Buffalo the Manchester of the new world! More than that, it will be the wonder of the world, the peerless, marvelous electric city! All this is coming. There is no chance about it. It is part of the great onward movement of the world. It is human progress, but in this case it is a tremendous stride, a lifetime of ordinary momentum at a bound. Century after century the waters of the “unsalted seas” leaped over Niagara’s precipice, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing beyond the grandeur of Nature in her wildest mood. Now, towards the close of the nineteenth century, this marvel of force is chained to man’s uses, and a power sufficient to run the machinery of the world is levied upon for industrial purposes. WHERE THE GOLDEN GRAIN IS STORED--THE ELEVATOR DISTRICT. This tunnel project is a splendid illustration of human enterprise, of which there has been an endless procession of illustrations. Think of a few of the great things that have been accomplished. It became necessary to cross oceans, and sailing vessels were built. The application of steam came, and the ships folded their wings and flew faster than ever they did before. The world demanded swift speed upon land, and railroads were born, culminating in an Empire State Express that flies from New York to Buffalo in a little over eight hours. Lightning leaped from the clouds to copper wires and girdled the earth with instantaneous intelligence, and our voices speed swifter than thought from city to city. The problems of the world are being solved one by one. This is the electric age, and who can foretell what mighty things may come in the train of the pioneer work with Niagara’s power! It is proposed at present to produce 125,000 horse-power. The Scientific American estimates that the force in Niagara’s current amounts to several millions of horse-power. The present tunnel can be duplicated again and again as necessity demands. The sale of 15,000 horse-power will carry the present investment, leaving 110,000 horse-power for clear profit. The company has a capital of $10,000,000 to draw from, and a number of the greatest capitalists in the country are behind the movement. It is certain, then, that development will keep pace with the demand, and that all the electric power needed will be forthcoming. We have the great inexhaustible storehouse of Niagara to draw from forever, and human enterprise can be depended upon to dig the gold that may be had for the digging. Buffalo, with her phenomenal facilities for tapping the mines, the lumber forests, the grain fields and all the other rich storehouses of the country, and with equal facilities for distributing the manufactured product, will, of course, be the chief market for the electric power produced at the Falls. It can be brought here without material loss in transmission, while the transportation advantages conferred by Buffalo’s unique location cannot be transmitted. They are immovable as the eternal hills. The result is not hard to trace. Buffalo is going to be the Electric City of the world, instead of the Queen City of the lakes. In the larger manufacturing concerns here the cost of steam power has been brought down to about $35 per horse- power per year. The cost of power in the smaller manufacturing concerns is much greater than this sum. It is estimated that the electric power from the Falls can be sold in Buffalo, ready for instant use by touching a button, at little more than half the present cost of steam power. Here is room for thought and comparison on the part of those engaged in manufacturing enterprises. Does not cheap power settle the question of a city’s manufacturing greatness? Can there be any appeal from such settlement? Give any city advantages in the way of cheap and abundant power not enjoyed by any other city on the face of the earth and what is the natural result? The eyes of manufacturers everywhere are focused upon that city. Give to a city unequaled transportation facilities and the cheapest power in the world, and you have the conditions for building up the greatest industrial center in the world. This is Buffalo’s position. Far-sighted men do not talk any more about the possibilities of Buffalo’s future. They talk about certainties. They say with the New York Tribune: “The past of Buffalo is secure, and her manifest destiny is evidently to be something tremendous.” Truly, as has been said by Samuel Wilkeson, Buffalo holds the key to the commerce of an inland empire. THE GROWTH OF A YEAR. The Buffalo City Directory for 1892 shows about 6,000 more names than were contained in last year’s directory. In order to compute the population of a city, it is usual to multiply the number of names in the directory by 3½, as, for the most part, only the names of heads of families appear there. Some cities multiply by 4. It is certainly very modest to make the multiplier 3¼, which is usually done in Buffalo. Upon this basis it will be seen that the increase in our population during the past year was 19,500, enough people gained in twelve months to make a city as large as Lockport, N. Y., and nearly as large as Oswego, N. Y. Counting 3¼ people to one name in the directory, we have a population, in June, 1892, of 297,375. The increase during the year has been no more than the usual steady increase in the population of the city. With the addition of cheap electric power as a cause for growth, there can be no question but that the increase in future years will be much more rapid than in the past.