The Industrial Heritage Trail

By 1924 Buffalo led the world in grain handling, with 300,000,000 bushels passing through Buffalo harbor to be unloaded, lifted, stored, and reloaded by the grain elevators along the Buffalo River. Grain made Buffalo a major inland port and put the city on the map of the world. Grain from mid-western states and provinces was shipped by the Great Lakes and by rail to Buffalo, then transferred to rail cars and canal boats for shipment to eastern ports, where it was distributed around the world. Much grain was also processed in Buffalo into flour, animal feed, brewer's malt, and vegetable oils. The development of this trade included the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, the wooden Dart Elevator in 1842 as the first steam powered elevator in the world, the Plympton Elevator with iron bins in 1868, steel bins developed in 1890 because of fire danger, electrification of the Electric and Great Northern Elevators in 1897, and the American Elevator built with slip-formed concrete in 1906. Grain movement peaked from the 1920s through the 1940s at 300,000,000 bushels, but the Welland Canal built in 1932 allowed ships to bypass Buffalo, grain elevator activity began to decline in 1950, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1952 allowing ship access to the interior, and by 2003 Kinsman's final load marked the end of marine legs and scoopers with the rise of self-unloading vessels.

Buffalo, New York · United States