Buffalo - A Network of Canals

Commercial Slip connected the Buffalo River to the Erie Canal mainline one hundred yards northeast of this site. It marked the original terminus of the Erie Canal and was soon joined by many other artificial waterways around Buffalo Harbor. As commerce blossomed, shippers, millers, grain merchants, and land speculators cut dozens of slips, channels, side cuts, basins, and small canals so that lake and canal boats could reach warehouses and elevators to be loaded and unloaded. Buffalo developed around this busy network of canals and slips. Three- and four-story wood and brick buildings crowded the area, serving the needs of commerce and workers. These housed sail lofts, ship chandler's shops, stables, warehouses, grocers, wholesale merchants, hotels, brothels, saloons, and tenements. The canal district had much of the character of a frontier boomtown, with pervasive lawlessness, quickly made and quickly lost fortunes, and poor living conditions.

Buffalo, New York · United States