Niagara Falls—Buffalo—Gowanda—(Warren, Pa.); US 62.
Niagara Falls to Pennsylvania Line, 102.1 m.
Two-lane concrete with stretches of three- and four-lane concrete and macadam.
Erie R.R. parallels route between Buffalo and Kennedy.
North of the village of Hamburg, US 62 runs through an industrialized section. Niagara Falls supplies the power and light to the manufacturing plants; the ‘white coal’ is carried by a network of overhead cables supported by tall steel towers. Huge freight trucks crowd the highway.
South of Hamburg is rural New York. Farmers send their milk to New York City; the small village industries produce glue, lollipop sticks, and other commodities.
South of NIAGARA FALLS, 0 m. (575 alt., 77,374 pop.) (see Niagara Falls), is the junction with old River Road, 1.9 m. In the Gay Nineties this road was traveled by the buggy-riding gentry on their way to clambakes at inns and taverns along the Niagara River.
At 12.7 m. is the junction with State 425.
Right on State 425 to NORTH TONAWANDA, 4 m. (575 alt., 20,224 pop.), on the northern bank of the Barge Canal, an industrial city manufacturing steel and iron products, musical instruments, amusement park furnishings, spark plugs, and filing cabinets. In the eastern part of town is an impressive residential district, with tree-lined avenues, parks, and gardens. The industrial section, with its large foreign population groups, faces the water front. In the Oliver and River Street section, the cheerless bungalows of Polish iron and steel workers are strung out in dense rows. Here Polish is commonly spoken and old-world customs observed. On the feast of St. Mary’s, in the spring, blossoms are cut and brought to church to be blessed; an offering is made to secure bumper crops in the autumn. Corpus Christi Day begins with a solemn high mass; the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for three days for public adoration; 40-hour devotions are held; and the celebration closes on Sunday with bands, choirs, worshippers, and children in procession, waving banners and singing, stopping at street altars to pray and to receive the sacramental blessing from priests. The Italian section centers in Vanderwoort Street near Payne Avenue. The Columbus Day celebration calls for parades, with floats representing the discovery of America, banquets, and speeches. The RUDOLPH WURLITZER PLANT, 900-block Niagara Falls Blvd., makes theater and church organs, radio cabinets, mechanical pianos, and coin-operated phonographs. The firm was founded in 1856 at Cincinnati by Rudolph Wurlitzer, a young German, whose ancestors had been organ makers in Saxony for centuries. The North Tonawanda plant was opened in 1908.
TONAWANDA, 4.2 m. (575 alt., 12,973 pop.), twin sister of North Tonawanda, is a transportation center with a web of railroads and a harbor accommodating large lake steamers; it produces shingles, office furniture, paper, motorboats, and beaverboard. Workers include large groups of Poles, Germans, Syrians, and Italians.
BUFFALO, 23.9 m. (600 alt., 575,150 pop.) (see Buffalo), is at the junction with State 5 (see Tour 11), State 33 (see Tour 33), and State 16 (see Tour 38).
South of Buffalo, at 34.5 m., is the junction with US 20 (see Tour 8).
At the HAMBURG FAIR GROUNDS (L), 37.9 m., the annual Erie County fair is held during the last week in August. Children’s Day is marked by a pageant of as many as 30,000 children; Political Day brings oratory; Fireman’s Day calls out 80 western New York organizations in a massed drill. The State police give riding exhibits; free dancing and vaudeville acts are offered; white and Indian boys vie in archery competition; old-time plowing contests survive in the form of horse-pulling matches.
The center of truck-farming activities is HAMBURG, 38.8 m. (826 alt., 5,428 pop.), settled by German immigrants about 1808. During the Canadian uprising of 1837–9 the villagers were sympathetic to the rebel cause and 400 recruits planned to cross Lake Erie one wintry night to invade Canada; but this heroic undertaking was stopped by New York State militia.
The undulating hills and hummocks south of Hamburg are the outposts of the Allegheny Mountains. This part of the State was settled by New Englanders; the soil has been cultivated by their descendants for generations, and the hardy New England influence is still in evidence: the zigzag rail fence, the solid stone or brick house, the neat flower garden.
NORTH COLLINS, 48.8 m. (830 alt., 1,178 pop.), has a chemical plant, canneries, a cheese factory, and brick kilns. The place was settled about 1809 by Quakers, who in 1813 built the first meetinghouse, still standing at the southern edge of town, a white clapboarded structure with slat-backed benches and white drop shutters. Natural gas, discovered on village farmlands in 1888, is still being piped to Buffalo and Springfield.
Between North Collins and Gowanda the route runs close to the eastern boundary of the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation. At 52.9 m. is the junction with a reservation road (see Tour 8).
At 55.9 m. is the northern junction with State 39 (see Tour 34); the two roads run in common to Gowanda.
The GOWANDA STATE HOMEOPATHIC HOSPITAL, 56.8 m., an institution for mental disorders, stands on a 500-acre tract. The community is listed in the postal directory as Helmuth, New York, named for Dr. William Tod Helmuth of New York City.
GOWANDA, 58.4 m. (760 alt., 3,042 pop.), tans leather, makes glue, carbonated beverages, cider, vinegar, wood barrels, and gelatine. Cattaraugus Creek attracted New England settlers in 1810, and they raised sawmills and gristmills. The intrepid Ahaz Allen (see below) built the first frame house in 1814. In 1830 Horace Greeley, who had hiked as a journeyman printer from Vermont to Erie County, came to Lodi, as the place was then known, in search of a job. In 1848 Lodi became Gowanda; three years later the Erie Railroad came through and brought industries.
Left from Gowanda on a paved road 7.2 m. into ZOAR VALLEY. Down Cattaraugus Creek in 1810 came Ahaz Allen and his family, all packed in a canoe. Stopping here, Ahaz looked out upon the pleasant valley and was reminded of Zoar, the city of plains, to which Lot once fled; and the valley got its name. In the eighties some of the largest gushers in the New York oil fields were struck in this region; in 1915 there were 23 wells, but these were all shut in, and the place is today a natural gas storage field.
The Erie Railroad bed in DAYTON, 63.2 m. (1,322 alt., 300 pop.), marks the watershed line, south of which all water flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
Left from Dayton on State 18 to CATTARAUGUS, 9.5 m. (1,383 alt., 1,236 pop.), which makes creamery supplies, wood veneer, meat skewers, and lollipop sticks. The Indian word means ‘bad smelling banks,’ referring to the natural gas that used to escape from rock crevices along Cattaraugus Creek. The place was settled comparatively late—in 1851—when the Erie Railroad came through; the gang workers who laid the tracks regularly blew their wages and turned the hamlet into a true western frontier town with their carousing, gambling, and fighting.
Joseph Plumb, who owned most of the land, was appalled by this lawlessness and decided to dedicate his property forever to temperance by inserting a clause in the conveyance of his lots which provided that title to any parcel of land should revert to him or his heirs if liquor were sold on the premises. When a man named Tubbs ignored this restriction and merrily went on selling hard liquor on a lot purchased from Plumb, a lawsuit resulted, which ended in a decision by the Court of Appeals upholding the validity of the prohibitory clause and reverting the lot to Plumb. The teetotaling but altruistic Plumb deeded the property back to the Tubbs family.
LITTLE VALLEY, 16.7 m. (1,594 alt., 1,196 pop.), Cattaraugus County seat, has a Borden milk plant and a cutlery factory. The vicinity is rich in archeological material predating Huron-Iroquois history.
Southward the road follows Little Valley Creek through the rising hills of the Alleghenies to WEST SALAMANCA, 25.5 m. (1,380 alt., 530 pop.). Originally called Buck Tooth, the place was once an important junction on the Erie Railroad, with turntables, shops, and engine houses; but when the farmers raised land prices, the railroad activities were moved to the present SALAMANCA, 27.8 m. (1,380 alt., 9,654 pop.) (see Tour 3), which is on State 17 (see Tour 3).
South of Dayton US 62 runs through a hilly area, following a series of creeks that finally join the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania. At 102.1 m. US 62 crosses the PENNSYLVANIA LINE, 12 miles north of Warren, Pennsylvania.