Near the present northern boundary of North Tonawanda, land that two hundred years earlier had been virgin forest inhabited by cougars and wolves and rich in aquatic life became the site of early settlement and later resort development. In 1817 Stephen Jacobs, a Revolutionary War veteran who had fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, purchased 196 acres along the old Military Road, cleared a small area of forest, and built a log cabin home for his family, which remained a family residence for 75 years. In 1892 the Riverside Land Company bought the cabin while planning a new suburb between Niagara Falls and North Tonawanda, and a hotel was soon annexed to the old cabin. In 1896 William Voetsch, owner of the Edgewater Amusement Park on Grand Island across the river, acquired nearby riverfront property across the road from the Log Cabin Hotel, built a dock to ferry park customers, and established a hotel that served as a restaurant and entertainment venue. Because the site stood on the main route between Buffalo and Niagara Falls and was accessible by water, rail, and road, the Edgewater Landing Hotel quickly prospered. Its natural beauty attracted travelers for years, while its position just outside the city limits also encouraged cock fighting, women wrestlers, liquor sales on the Sabbath, and other clandestine pleasures. The Buffalo and Niagara Falls Electric Railway, constructed in 1896, and its Ely Trestle crossing the old Military Road and New York Central Railroad tracks at this location brought more visitors. A fire in 1917 destroyed Voetsch's original hotel, but the rebuilt Edgewater Landing Hotel remained a popular restaurant and music venue. From 1940 until the late 1970s it operated as the locally famous Wa-Ha-Kie, where area musicians performed while young patrons drank and danced, until fire brought an end to the site in 1934.