This article originally appeared in the Winter 1999 issue of the Heritage Press Magazine

The Gatling Land Boom - Hamburg, New York

By Chris Andrle

On Saturday, June 3rd, 1893, Richard J. Galling, inventor of the infamous Gatling machine gun, laid the cornerstone of the great Galling Steel Plant beside Eighteen-mile Creek in the Town of Hamburg. The new plant would employ a thousand men in the production of heavy steel guns using a new casting process invented by Dr. Galling. Surrounding the plant site were the neatly laid-out streets and numbered lots of the future model industrial city of Galling, New York. Over three thousand people listened as Dr. Galling predicted that the city of Buffalo would reach a population of one million, and Galling would become a thriving manufacturing suburb with the help of the great electric power of Niagara Falls. (See 1893 map of Buffalo here.)

A few months earlier, on November 6th, 1892, George M. Bailey, a former city editor for the Buffalo Express, and a group of New York City investors organized the Gatling Ordnance Company. The company was to manufacture heavy ordnance for coast defense and naval purposes. Guns of six to twelve inches caliber would be made under patents held by Richard Galling, using a method that allowed the guns to be made in one casting, rather than put together in sections and bound with hoops. In their offices at 63 Wall Street in New York City, they discussed the location for their new steel works. Sites in Philadelphia, Duluth, and Marion, Indiana were considered, but the site they ended up choosing was near Idlewood Station, in the Town of Hamburg, New York.

Idlewood Station was located just south of Lake View, where the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed the present-day North Creek Road. Indeed, this was one of the main reasons for choosing this site. Coal, lumber and Lake Superior iron were much cheaper in Idlewood than anywhere else where the other necessary conditions existed. Eighteen-mile Creek would be widened and deepened to allow lake traffic to reach the plant, and a natural gas well was to be drilled on the Gatling Ordnance property, in addition to the new one less than thirty miles away from the site, at Wanakah. Proximity to the Eighteen-mile Gorge was also a primary reason for choosing this site. In order to cast guns of immense size it would be necessary to build a mold. The one at Galling was to be 20 feet in diameter and 75 feet deep. The neighboring ravine would be connected with the bottom of the mold and used as a natural drain.

Idlewood Station's great natural beauty was an additional selling point. The Buffalo Express said: "The site of the proposed town is well-chosen and commands a fine view of all the surrounding country. The town is cut in two by Eighteen-mile Creek, a lively, sparkling stream which flows through a canyon with precipitous sides of solid rock about 100 feet high. The hamlet of Idlewood can be seen nestled among the trees about two miles as the crow flies, from Gatling, and the natural beauties and picturesqueness of Eighteen-mile Creek are some of the attractions which make this place so popular as a summer resort."

Yet the area was a thriving farm community, and the area that needed to be purchased covered about two square miles. Several local men were enlisted to negotiate the purchase of over thirty farms, at the current farm value. By December, contracts had been filed with the Erie County Clerk for the purchase of all the land between Lake View Road and the Eighteen-mile Creek Gorge on both sides of the current Conrail and Norfolk and Western tracks and extending eastward toward the Village of Hamburg for a distance of three miles. The contracts provided for a cash down payment, usually $50, with a further payment to be made upon delivery of the deed, and the balance due by mortgage payable in two to five years. Some of the farms were purchased for as little as $95 an acre. On January 7th, George Bailey transferred all 1,028 acres of land contracts to the Gatling Town Site Company, of which he was president, in return for 8,000 shares of stock. The total amount required to obtain all the farms was $160,000 plus interest. The entire property was secured for less than $200 an acre.

After the purchase of the land was completed, the engineering firm of Ricker & Wing moved in to survey the property. Two teams of surveyors and engineers were at work daily, in spite of bad weather. Maps of the tract as a whole were made, as well as maps of each of the thirty-four farms. Levels were taken every five hundred feet. Streets, parks, and boulevards were laid out. Section one, nearest the railroad tracks, was divided into 45 blocks of 1,861 lots, each 33 by 120 feet in size. The factory district, including the 20-acre site of the Gatling Steel Plant, was located east of the railroad tracks between Idlewood Avenue (now North Creek Road) and the north bank of the Eighteen-mile Creek Gorge. Another 100 acres were reserved for other factories, including a shoe factory, a brickyard, a planing mill, and a stone yard. (See map of the planned Gatling development here.)

The city of Gatting was to be a model industrial town. No liquor would be sold within its limits, and every deed contained a clause forbidding forever the sale of liquor on the premises. No "objectionable industries" were to be located within the city. Buyers were promised no taxes for two years, and a park was to be made from the wood lot of one of the farms. Plans were announced for the construction of a thirty-room, Gothic-style hotel on the bank of the creek between Idlewood Station and North Evans. A lot was donated to the Layman's Missionary League of Buffalo for an Episcopal chapel. The first issue of the Gatling Weekly News appeared in January, published by the Gatling News Company at 473 William Street in Buffalo. The owner, Mr. Work, intended to move the paper to Gatling "... in due time." One investor bought several lots for his family, believing that Gatling would make a popular summer place for prominent Southern families "who were getting tired of Newport and other expensive fashionable watering places, and would like a home near the shores of one of the Northern lakes."

0n April 3rd, 1893, work began on the great Gatling Steel Plant. The excavation of a large casting pit for heavy guns was initiated. A railroad siding running east for a half-mile through the factory district was built. Construction of the main furnace building would start "as soon as the materials were laid upon the ground."

In May 1893, one of the largest promotional campaigns in Buffalo's history began. All the Buffalo papers carried advertisements for Gatling. A Gatling machine gun was on display in the city. Lots were sold from the Gatling Town Site Company offices at 24 Erie Street "on easy payments to responsible people, at prices from $250 to $750 each, less 25 percent reduction." They also sold stock in the Gatling Town Site Company at $100 per share.

Near the end of May, the newspaper advertisements trumpeted a free excursion to the June 3rd dedication ceremonies at Gatling: "ONLY NINE DAYS MORE!" "ONE WEEK MORE!" "NEXT SATURDAY-DON'T FORGET!" "TO-MORROW!" "... make arrangements to attend the Dedication Ceremonies at Gatling, formerly Idlewood Station. You can do it without expense. All nature is at her loveliest. The country is full of wild flowers. The air is pure and laden with the fragrance of many orchards in bloom. Gatling is Buffalo's most beautiful suburb, 8 miles southwest from Buffalo on the three great trunk lines of railroad. You can live at Gatling and work in Buffalo. You can live at Gatling and work at Gatling. There is every convenience now at Gatling. Telegraph, telephone, express messenger service, frequent trains, beautiful drives along the shore of Lake Erie, pure air, pure water, perfect drainage. Lots sold on weekly or monthly payments."

The Buffalo Express was particularly vocal in its support for Gatling: "... it is not the intention of the Company to push the sale of these lots by excursions or flaming advertisements... nothing will be boomed. Nothing will be exaggerated or misrepresented. .. no Sunday excursions will ever be run." The Erie County Independent, a Hamburg newspaper, was a little more skeptical: "...we are down on all this system of booming ... remember that certain classes of boomers are schemers. Let our readers be wise and act accordingly."

0n Saturday, June 3rd, 1893, the dedication ceremonies were held at Gatling. Over 3,000 free tickets were distributed at the Gatling Town Site Company offices. A special train left the Central Depot on Exchange Street at 10 a.m., with ten cars crowded with people. The train was run out on the new siding which extended across the Gatling site. Visitors witnessed the firing of 500 rounds of blank cartridges from the Gatling gun which had been on display in Buffalo for several weeks. The Lehman Company shoe factory, which employed 50 men, was to have been in operation that day, but never opened even though the machinery had been installed. Another inventor, Captain Lina Beecher, was selling stock in his newly formed Beecher Single-Rail Company. His company was to manufacture and sell a new type of street car or railway coach that ran on one rail. He had a wire strung across the Eighteen-mile Creek Gorge with a small sample car on it.

At 11 a.m., George Bailey introduced Dr. Gatling, who gave a short address. The cornerstone of the main furnace building was then laid. It contained a copper box which held copies of the previous day's Buffalo papers, a list of the officers and stockholders of the Gatling Ordnance Company, some coins, a steel engraving of Dr. Gatling and a printed biography of his life, and a list of the officials of the state, county, and city governments.

A large tent was set up midway between Lake View and Idlewood, and a free lunch of sandwiches, crackers, cheese, hot. coffee, and lemonade was served at noon by a New York City caterer. Music was provided by the Buffalo Cornet Band. Shortly after lunch, Jere Johnson Jr., president of the Brooklyn Real Estate Exchange, climbed into a carriage and opened the sale. The first lot sold for $250. The carriage rolled forward to the next lot, where the bidding continued. Over 30 lots were sold in an hour and a half. The average price was $215 per lot, almost $2,400 an acre for farmland that had been purchased for as little as $95 an acre six months before. At two-thirty, the crowd was greatly enlarged by the arrival of a second train from Buffalo. By six o'clock, about 175 lots had been sold.

The return train to Buffalo comprised 18 well-filled coaches and was said to be the longest passenger train ever to arrive in the city. The next day, the Buffalo Express said: "The Town of Gatling has been placed before the public in all the glory of electric-lights and mechanical effects and those interested say the boom will never die." The Eric County Independent merely wished ". . . success to all honest, meritorious enterprises."

The excitement quickly died out after opening day. By the end of June, rumors had started that the Gatling Ordnance Company was in financial trouble. Little or no payments were made on the land contracts, and many of the farms remained uncultivated during the season since the farmers didn't know whether they owned them or not. Stock in the Gatling Town Site Company soon became worthless. In August, Walter H. Hopkins obtained a judgment against George Bailey in Superior Court. The sheriff was instructed to attach sufficient of Bailey's property to satisfy the judgment, but reported that "he had been unable to find any real or personal property to attach."

By September, there had been little change at Gatling. The shoe factory and the railroad switch were sold at a sheriff's sale, leaving nothing to mark the site of the city of Galling except the casting pit, and a granary occasionally used as an office. In December, the Industrial Land Company, successor to the Gatling Town Site Company, began buying up old claims for land and labor. They promised to go slower and on a more solid footing, and encouraging results were promised for the following season.

The Gatling land boom left a bitter memory with Buffalonians for many years. Today, however, few remember and little evidence remains. The train station at Gatling, which soon reverted to its previous name of Idlewood, no longer exists. The shoe factory soon after was sold to George Heath of North Evans who tore it down and used the lumber to make a house for his berry pickers. Later, he tore that building down and used the lumber again for an addition to his home.

In 1895, one section of the property was sold to the Queen City Cycle Company, which built and operated a large bicycle factory until early in the next century, when the cycling craze died out. Most of the property eventually reverted to its original owners after they returned the deposits that they had been paid. George Bailey, the Gatling Town Site Company, and the Industrial Land Company did not completely divest themselves of their interests in all the property until 1900.

The great pit for cooling the huge castings could be seen until 1942 when the Pennsylvania Railroad removed all the soil around it for fill during the construction of the new railroad bridge over Eighteen-mile Creek. Burke Road, one of the streets laid out by the surveyors during the winter of 1893, is still in use today.

Chris Andrle is a resident of Lake View who was surprised to learn of his great-uncle George Bailey's activities in the area.

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