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To read more of John H. Conlin's story, see page 8 of the Summer 2002 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now! |
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Good planning and hard work from business and home owners has raised property values in the neighborhood, brought in suburbanites to shop and enticed young families to buy up surrounding houses like hotcakes. There's a real resurgence in the community feel of the area, with block clubs and parties, various beautification projects and an unspoken expectation for neighbors to buy very, very locally.... Once long ago, this neighborhood had a similar intimate feel to it. An amateur photographer named Mr. Willard T. Baldy lives at 198 Cleveland Avenue, just steps frm where SpoT Coffee is now, and he catalogued changes in the neighborhood through the 30s and 40s. Some of the buildings are remarkably similar, and some changes have been drastic... To read the rest of the article by Natalie Green Tessier see page 14 and view the 8 pages of Elmwood Avenue photographs in the Summer 2002 issue. Subscribe now!
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Wells, Fargo and the American Express Company, founded two years earlier, each had its genesis in Buffalo. The mega-corporations into which these ventures evolved have had a greater impact on the nation's commerce than any other businesses with connections to Buffalo. However, as has been the case with so many other enterprises whose roots can be traced to the fervid frontier town which Buffalo was in the latter half of the nineteenth century, those ventures now flourish elsewhere and their businesses enrich far distant communities... What follows is a modest attempt to recall the circumstances which contributed to the formation of the two companies and the origins of their founders, Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, and to ascertain what the men and the businesses once meant to the City. In so doing, we can gain an appreciation of William G. Fargo, the person, whose life story is the most stunning "Horatio Alger" tale ever to be told of a Buffalonian. To read more of Jacek A. Wysocki's story, see page 24 of the Summer 2002 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!
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Marie-Therese
Guyon Dubuisson Lamothe Cadillac was called "the first woman of
the West" by historian Frank Severance. It was in 1702, three hundred
years ago this year, that the first non-Amerindian woman traversed the
Niagara River portage. The 3 year-old wife of Antoine Lamonth Cadillac
journeyed by water from her home in Quebec City to her husband's newly
established post at the western end of Lake Erie, Detroit. It was a
dangerous adventure covering nearly one thousand miles by canoe. Although
Mme. Cadillac was the organizer of the expedition, engaging an escort
of experienced French Canadian voyageurs to guide her canoe flotilla,
she must share the "first woman" distinction with her companion,
Marie-Anne Picote Belestre, the 30 year-old wife of Alphonse de Tonty.
She, too, was going to live with her husband in Detroit. Alphonse was
Cadillac's second in command at Detroit. He was also the younger brother
of the famed Henri de Tonty, the "iron hand" lieutenant of
La Salle. Other unnamed wives of the Detroit garrison are believed to
have been part of the contingent. Mme. Cadillac also brought along her
10 year-old son, "le petit Cadillac."
The
Elmwood Avenue Strip has long been an important thoroughfare in our
queenly city. A close look behind many storefronts today reveals old
Victorians with grand proportions. Now Elmwood is Buffalo's own funky,
artsy area, compared often to placed like Greenwich Village in Manhattan.
2002
marks the sequicentenary of the founding of Wells, Fargo & Company.
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