Canal and Harbor

The Erie Canal formally opened on Oct. 26, 1825, connecting the heartlands of the continent to the rest of the world and helping transform Buffalo into the country’s eighth largest city by 1901. The story reaches back to 1814, when post-War of 1812 village entrepreneurs such as George Coit, Charles Townsend, and Oliver Forward had the foresight to build a harbor. Construction began in the early 1820s as the waterfront became a booming Canal District. Four men are generally credited with building the harbor at Buffalo over the competitive efforts of nearby Black Rock. After a hired engineer failed, Judge Wilkeson supervised creation of the harbor in just 221 work days. Buffalo villagers pledged work and goods, but most of the funding came from merchants Coit, Townsend, and Forward. The Erie Canal itself, just four feet deep, was connected to the lakes via slips. Commercial Slip was the first and most important, followed by nearby Prime Slip, financed by New York businessman Nathaniel Prime. In 1862, Buffalo set its ship arrival and departure record by hosting 16,390 vessels, an average of 68 each day during the shipping season. The canal transported 2 million tons of forest products in 1870 alone and reached an all-time freight high of 6,670,000 tons in 1872. By 1885, the port was the country’s third-largest coal depot, and grain was by far its most important cargo, followed by ore, lumber, and coal.

Buffalo, New York · United States