When the city of Buffalo, under the favoring conditions which have brought it to its present splendid eminence, doubles its population in ten years, and increases in wealth seven million dollars yearly, what can be foretold of it when in addition to all its present wealth-producing resources it becomes the possessor of an unlimited supply of the cheapest power in the whole world!

Contemplating this fact, the Chicago Tribune said: “By virtue of having the cheapest power for turning its machinery, Buffalo will inevitably become the manufacturing centre of the nation.”

The New York Tribune adds this weighty testimony to the greatness of our future: “The past of Buffalo is secure, and her manifest destiny is evidently to be something tremendous.”

Already preparations are being made to bring to Buffalo the electric power from the great tunnel at Niagara Falls. Several companies have been formed of foremost business men, who see that in the distribution and application of the mighty power to industrial uses there are fortunes to be made, and that the pioneers in the task will win the chief prizes.

The time for discussing the practicability of bringing electric power from Niagara Falls to Buffalo has gone by. Electrical science has settled the question completely. It has been demonstrated beyond all question that electric power can be transmitted long distances without material loss.

A number of the greatest capitalists, and shrewdest investors in the United States, are financially interested in the tunnel scheme. Before they put up their money they satisfied themselves not only that the power could be produced, but that it could be sold.

They looked at Buffalo, 22 miles away, and saw a city of nearly 300,000 inhabitants, spread over a large territory, with ample opportunity for territorial growth beyond the present limits, a city in which 3,000 new houses were built in the year 1891, and in which nearly one hundred million dollars is invested in industrial enterprises. They saw a city into which 26 lines of railroad enter, representing a total trackage of about 25,000 miles, and including the great trunk lines leading east, west, north and south, tapping all the rich raw-material storehouses of the continent at all points. They saw that Buffalo had extraordinary facilities for the distribution of manufactures by rail, facilities created by the hand of industry, and they saw too nature’s grand gift in the great chain of lakes, coupled to another gift of industry, the Erie canal, giving us a water route to the Atlantic seaboard.

These men saw that here was the place where electric power could be disposed of in enormous quantities. They knew that they could send it here almost as cheaply as they could distribute it in the immediate vicinity of its point of production, and they saw the mighty certainties in a combination of unlimited cheap power for manufacturing and extraordinary shipping facilities. They knew that a market for their electrical product was forever assured, and they planted their millions in the earth and rock of Niagara. Better investment was never made.

Read the names of some of the great financiers engaged in this enterprise: William K. Vanderbilt, Chauncey M. Depew, Drexel, Morgan & Co., August Belmont, Brown Bros. & Co., Isaac N. Seligman, Winslow, Lamer & Co., Morris K. Jessup and others famous in the financial world.

OUR GREAT RAILROAD INTERESTS.

Buffalo is one of the greatest railroad centers in the United States. Its advantages for bringing in raw material cheaply and quickly are unequalled. Its railroad arteries go forth in all directions, reaching the rich mines and fertile fields and levying upon the wealth of all; and for the distribution of manufactured products it occupies a commanding position unexcelled by any city in the country. And to all this must be added its peerless shipping facilities by lake and canal, coupled with the fact of its unique location at the point of transhipment between lake, canal and railroad.

The railroad interests of Buffalo are larger than many residents of the city have any idea of. There are more miles of railroad tracks within the city limits than in any other city in the world. We have 660 miles of them. The railroads own over 3,600 acres of land in the city. Over one-tenth of the general city taxes levied in Buffalo is paid by the railroads. An army of over 20,000 men are steadily employed by the railroads in Buffalo. A great number of them own their own homes. With their families they are numerous enough to make a good-sized city of themselves.

New industries are constantly being added to swell the bulk of railroad enterprises here. The locomotive shops of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad are among the latest. They will cost half a million dollars to build, and they will be equipped with the highest class of machinery, costing several hundred thousand dollars more. It is the intention within a few years to spend about two million dollars on these shops, making them the largest and best equipped locomotive shops in the United States, rivaling the Altoona shops, now the largest in the world.

The building of the Gould Car Coupler Company’s works adds another to the long list of railroad supply shops located here, among which are the Wagner Palace Car Works, Buffalo Car Wheel Works, New York Car Wheel Works, Rood & Brown Car Wheel Works, all employing a large number of men. These are the kind of industries that anchor a city to prosperity forever.

All this shows what a railroad center Buffalo is and what splendid facilities we have for receiving and sending by rail.

LAKE AND CANAL.

From statistics of lake commerce, compiled by Charles H. Keep, secretary of the Lake Carriers’ Association, of Buffalo, it is learned that 30,299,006 tons of cargo were carried on the great lakes during the year 1890. Mr. Keep figures out that if all this tonnage were loaded into railroad cars of fifteen tons capacity, there would be a string of cars covering 13,466 miles of railroad tracks, or, in other words, four strings of cars from New York to San Francisco and enough left over to run two strings of cars from New York to Chicago. And most of this immense amount of tonnage came to Buffalo, or was shipped from Buffalo.

“During the season of 1890,” he continues, “more than nine million tons of ore were moved by the lake route from the vicinity of the mines to the vicinity of the furnaces.”

To give further proof of the immense volume of trade flowing to and from Buffalo, here are some comparative figures: During 1890 the amount of tonnage passing through the Suez canal was 6,890,094 tons, compared with 8,454,435 tons passing through the St. Mary’s Falls canal, and 21,684,000 tons passing through the Detroit River.

In 1891, from April 1st to December 1st, the grain, including flour, discharged from vessels at the port of Buffalo, reached the stupendous amount of 164,459,720 bushels.

In 1891 the total value of imports to Buffalo by canal was $27,942,213, and the total value of exports by canal the same year was $36,978,035. To handle this great volume of business 1180 boats were in use.

GREAT GRAIN STOREHOUSES.

There are 34 grain elevators in Buffalo, with a total capacity of 15,000,000 bushels, in addition to six floaters and six transfer elevators. These structures have a capacity for transferring 4,000,000 bushels every 24 hours. In 1891 they handled 135,315,510 bushels. Their total value is over $8,000,000. Several new elevators of giant size are planned. Two of them are estimated to cost a million dollars each.

WHERE TRADE CONCENTRATES.

Buffalo’s location is unique. It is the stopping off place between distant sections for men, animals, lumber, grain and general merchandise. The incidental business growing out of this fact is enormous. Grain, coal, iron, oil, lumber and other products of this great country gravitate toward Buffalo, and here they are sent to the mills, refineries and factories, or are transferred from boats to cars, or cars to boats, and sent east or west as the case may be.

The grain receipts by lake at this port have more than tripled in the past ten years, reaching nearly 165,000,000 bushels in 1891. These shipments are bound to vastly increase as new stretches of country in the West and Northwest are opened up and tapped by railroad lines. The recent passage of the river and harbor appropriation bill, by which an expenditure of $4,000,000 is authorized in securing a twenty-foot channel for lake navigation, will result in still lower rates and greatly increased shipments by lake. The saving in lake freights over the average railroad rates in 1891 was about $150,000,000.

Many of the largest coal trestles in the world are located here. This is the greatest coal distributing point in the world. Our coal trade is simply enormous. To give an indication of this, it is sufficient to quote the coal shipments by lake alone from Buffalo in 1891. They amounted to 2,365,895 tons, and the shipments by canal and rail were very large. A conservative estimate places the value of property used in the coal trade here at $10,000,000. This estimate, of course, does not include vessels engaged in the coal trade, nor railroad property outside of that actually devoted to the coal business.

The lumber trade here is phenomenally large. This, of course, is to be expected, owing to our location at the foot of the great lakes. The rich lumbering districts bordering upon the lakes are tributary to us, and the consequence is that Buffalo and Tonawanda, which are practically one, receive and distribute immense quantities of lumber. This is, in fact, the greatest distributing point for lumber in the world.

In addition to all this, we have the largest sheep market in the world, one of the largest horse markets in the world, and, next to Chicago, the largest cattle market in the world.

THE WONDER OF THE WORLD.

The facts given above are all drawn from compiled statistics of the city, and all show the splendid foundation that has been built for the vast city of the near future when the electric elixir from Niagara’s mighty power flows through all our commercial veins and arteries, cheapening the cost of production so that outside competition can be defied, building up every established enterprise, bringing numberless new ones into life, and making of Buffalo the Manchester of the new world! More than that, it will be the wonder of the world, the peerless, marvelous electric city!

All this is coming. There is no chance about it. It is part of the great onward movement of the world. It is human progress, but in this case it is a tremendous stride, a lifetime of ordinary momentum at a bound.

Century after century the waters of the “unsalted seas” leaped over Niagara’s precipice, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing beyond the grandeur of Nature in her wildest mood. Now, towards the close of the nineteenth century, this marvel of force is chained to man’s uses, and a power sufficient to run the machinery of the world is levied upon for industrial purposes.

This tunnel project is a splendid illustration of human enterprise, of which there has been an endless procession of illustrations. Think of a few of the great things that have been accomplished. It became necessary to cross oceans, and sailing vessels were built. The application of steam came, and the ships folded their wings and flew faster than ever they did before. The world demanded swift speed upon land, and railroads were born, culminating in an Empire State Express that flies from New York to Buffalo in a little over eight hours. Lightning leaped from the clouds to copper wires and girdled the earth with instantaneous intelligence, and our voices speed swifter than thought from city to city.

The problems of the world are being solved one by one.

This is the electric age, and who can foretell what mighty things may come in the train of the pioneer work with Niagara’s power! It is proposed at present to produce 125,000 horse-power. The Scientific American estimates that the force in Niagara’s current amounts to several millions of horse-power. The present tunnel can be duplicated again and again as necessity demands. The sale of 15,000 horse-power will carry the present investment, leaving 110,000 horse-power for clear profit. The company has a capital of $10,000,000 to draw from, and a number of the greatest capitalists in the country are behind the movement. It is certain, then, that development will keep pace with the demand, and that all the electric power needed will be forthcoming. We have the great inexhaustible storehouse of Niagara to draw from forever, and human enterprise can be depended upon to dig the gold that may be had for the digging.

Buffalo, with her phenomenal facilities for tapping the mines, the lumber forests, the grain fields and all the other rich storehouses of the country, and with equal facilities for distributing the manufactured product, will, of course, be the chief market for the electric power produced at the Falls. It can be brought here without material loss in transmission, while the transportation advantages conferred by Buffalo’s unique location cannot be transmitted. They are immovable as the eternal hills.

The result is not hard to trace. Buffalo is going to be the Electric City of the world, instead of the Queen City of the lakes.

In the larger manufacturing concerns here the cost of steam power has been brought down to about $35 per horse-power per year. The cost of power in the smaller manufacturing concerns is much greater than this sum.

It is estimated that the electric power from the Falls can be sold in Buffalo, ready for instant use by touching a button, at little more than half the present cost of steam power. Here is room for thought and comparison on the part of those engaged in manufacturing enterprises.

Does not cheap power settle the question of a city’s manufacturing greatness? Can there be any appeal from such settlement?

Give any city advantages in the way of cheap and abundant power not enjoyed by any other city on the face of the earth and what is the natural result? The eyes of manufacturers everywhere are focused upon that city.

Give to a city unequaled transportation facilities and the cheapest power in the world, and you have the conditions for building up the greatest industrial center in the world.

This is Buffalo’s position.

Far-sighted men do not talk any more about the possibilities of Buffalo’s future. They talk about certainties. They say with the New York Tribune: “The past of Buffalo is secure, and her manifest destiny is evidently to be something tremendous.”

Truly, as has been said by Samuel Wilkeson, Buffalo holds the key to the commerce of an inland empire.

THE GROWTH OF A YEAR.

The Buffalo City Directory for 1892 shows about 6,000 more names than were contained in last year’s directory. In order to compute the population of a city, it is usual to multiply the number of names in the directory by 3½, as, for the most part, only the names of heads of families appear there. Some cities multiply by 4. It is certainly very modest to make the multiplier 3¼, which is usually done in Buffalo. Upon this basis it will be seen that the increase in our population during the past year was 19,500, enough people gained in twelve months to make a city as large as Lockport, N. Y., and nearly as large as Oswego, N. Y. Counting 3¼ people to one name in the directory, we have a population, in June, 1892, of 297,375.

The increase during the year has been no more than the usual steady increase in the population of the city. With the addition of cheap electric power as a cause for growth, there can be no question but that the increase in future years will be much more rapid than in the past.

A GLOWING PROPHECY.

On February 19, 1888, before ever a drill had been started in the Niagara tunnel, and before the project had attracted much attention, the New York Times uttered this glowing prophecy for Buffalo:

“Every furrow turned on Dakota’s plains, almost every blow struck with keen-edged axes in the forests that stand on the rugged Lake Superior region; the ceaseless hammering of compressed-air drills in Lake Vermillion iron mines; the work of thousands of Pennsylvania coal miners--in short, almost every blow struck in primary productive industry in the region tributary to the lakes adds to the prosperity of Buffalo.... This region has proved to be the most productive of freight of all the lake regions, and the commerce of Lake Superior is still in its infancy.... Buffalo will inevitably become the greatest milling city on earth.”

THE GREAT SCIENTIFIC PAPER’S VIEW OF IT.

The Scientific American, in its issue of March 5, 1892, contained an extremely interesting article on the work and intentions of the Niagara Falls Power Company. After speaking of the methods of construction, etc., the article says:

“It is now the expectation of the company to make its first large contract for the delivery of power at a distance from the Falls, with the city of Buffalo, 3,000 horse-power being required for the lighting of the city. The present cost of a steam horse-power in Buffalo is put at $35 per year, and the company offers to contract to furnish power on its grounds at the Falls according to the following scale: For 5,000 horse-power, $10 per horse-power; for 4,500, $10.50; for 4,000, $11; and so on down to 300 horse-power, for which there will be charged $21 per horse-power per annum, each power to be supplied for twenty-four hour days. It is evident, therefore, that if the cost of transmission be within present expectations, the company will be able to furnish power at Buffalo at a much lower price than it is at present to be had at, and for a far larger field of usefulness than the mere lighting of the city. According to the most successful of all the recent efforts in the way of practically transmitting power electrically for a considerable distance, only about twenty-five per cent. of the power was lost in transmitting it by wire a distance of 108 miles. This degree of success was attained at the recent Frankfort exposition.”

WHAT ERASTUS WIMAN SAYS.

That well-known and successful financier, Erastus Wiman, of New York, who is deeply interested in electrical enterprises, read a very able paper at the convention of the National Electric Light Association held in Buffalo in February, 1892. In his paper he devoted considerable attention to the Niagara Falls tunnel scheme, and among other things he said:

“How vast is the internal commerce that throbs and pulsates over this fair land we may not now stop to estimate, and how important a part this great city of Buffalo is destined to play in it, electrically, we can only dimly guess. * * * The whole electrical community are watching with intense interest the possibility of the development in this city of Buffalo electrical transmission arising out of the successful effort which is now being made to harness the power hitherto latent in the Niagara River. The boldness of the proposal, the extent and character of the enterprise which is now nearing completion in this effort, the pluck and push in the work, challenge alike the attention of the engineering and the commercial world. The relation of this enormous power of nature to the transmission of electricity is the most important consideration which now occupies the thoughts of those most interested. The success which has attended the three-phase current from Lauffen to Frankfort in the transmission of power 112 miles, without material loss, comes just at the right moment to make it seem possible that the enormous potentialities in the forces of Niagara can be made to reach a degree of usefulness never dreamt of in the past and hardly realized in the wonderful present. It seems fortunate, therefore, that the convention which is here assembled should, as it were, be in the presence of the most stupendous event possible in the history of the science of electricity. In the development of the next few years will be found ample food for thought and effort, out of which may grow a relief for electric lighting plants of the greatest possible consequence. If in the city of Buffalo and from the Niagara River there can be transmitted power in such enormous proportions as are now contemplated, sub-divided and reduced, so that into every factory and almost into every house the force and energy can be controlled and operated, there is latent in every central station the possibilities that may come to every town in the country and to all electric light plants now lying idle during the day, an imitation in modified form of the power that of all forces in the world, Niagara is the best example.”

“THE MANUFACTURING CENTRE OF THE NATION.”

Within the past year or two, and particularly during 1892, Buffalo has received a great deal of attention from the press in all parts of the country. The leading newspapers of the large cities have discussed the question of Buffalo’s future growth, and the general concensus of opinion has been that it will be phenomenally large.

Among the newspapers that have entered into this discussion is the Chicago Tribune. It stands in the front rank of the great journals of the United States. It is very ably edited, is a sterling, conservative newspaper, and its editorial utterances carry great weight. In its issue of March 13, 1892, it printed a leading editorial about Buffalo, and it is here produced in full:

“A recent article in the Tribune setting forth the prospect that this city will ere long be the centre of operations in the United States for the largest electrical company in the world has incited more than one good-humored protest that the people here are expecting too much. The New York Tribune and the Buffalo Express both call attention to the fact that Buffalo has great expectations in this matter of being the electrical centre of the world. With Niagara Falls behind it, and a consequence of the fact, Buffalo is claimed to be looming up as the chief manufacturing and shipping centre of the interior.

“In the course of a few months from now the practicability of converting the Falls into a source of power, light, heat, and refrigeration is to be demonstrated. A company is now constructing tunnels and setting a series of turbine wheels in position from which it is expected to obtain 120,000 horse-power without the combustion of a single pound of fuel. If it succeeds in this, every wheel in Buffalo can be turned and every building lighted and heated at the lowest possible cost. With this enormous electrical power transmitted to the city and distributed through it coal will no longer be burned there, and the steam engine will be dispensed with in manufacturing processes. By virtue of having the cheapest power for turning its machinery Buffalo will inevitably become the manufacturing centre of the nation. This is the forecast made by practical electricians and endorsed by shrewd business men as a sound deduction, warranted, too, by a glance at the remarkable progress achieved by the city during the last decade.

“In that period the city at the foot of Lake Erie increased its coal traffic 387 per cent., its iron receipts 226 per cent., its population by 89 per cent., and fully doubled its grain receipts and lumber shipments. It is already the largest grain-receiving and coal-distributing center in the world, the principal lumber port in the country, and one of the greatest markets for live stock and fish. Its number of manufacturing establishments increased 200 per cent. from 1880 to 1890, and it is now considered certain that they will more than treble again by the end of the century with the conversion of the Falls into a source of electrical power, while the population will increase from 300,000 to 1,000,000. And it is said ‘Buffalo now seems destined to gain steadily upon Chicago in the race for commercial supremacy.’

“That is a noble ambition, and the Tribune sees no reason to find fault with it. But it should not be forgotten that Chicago will also grow, so that Buffalo may still be a long way behind when her promise of a million inhabitants will have been realized. Yet it may be said that the prospects of growth are set forth only in a mild way by either of the papers named. If the transference of electrical power be performed as cheaply and efficiently as is now expected the result may be a speedy removal thither of much of the manufacturing industry of New England, a large share of the ‘Yankee notion’ business that now flourishes in those Eastern States, and no little of the manufacturing energy that at present exhibits itself in the smaller cities of New York and New Jersey. Possibly the silk industry of the latter will be found seeking the propinquity of the Falls. Troy and Rochester, particularly the latter, are likely to be injuriously affected, unless it be found that the power can be transmitted to them with but little loss, and Cleveland may be a great loser, while even the woolen mills of Philadelphia may be unable to compete with those of the new center. In short, the possibilities for paper mills, flour mills, cotton and woolen manufactories, and a host of other hives of industry clustering there is limited only by the quantity of power available from the descending waters, and this great prosperity will not bring with it the smudge of coal-burning, which has defiled the buildings and polluted the atmosphere of other cities that have attempted greatness by changing to more useful forms the raw products of nature. But it is hard to see how any or all of this can materially hurt Chicago, and the people of this city can well afford to wish those of Buffalo success in their new departure.”

“ANOTHER MANCHESTER.”

In a very able leading editorial, printed in the New York Tribune of February 7, 1892, the future of Buffalo was glowingly mirrored. Such utterances from such a source speak volumes, and show the commanding position to which Buffalo has risen--a position that attracts the attention of the newspapers of national eminence as well as of the greatest capitalists of the country. The article referred to is herewith printed entire:

“Chicago has been so intent upon rivaling New York in population and commercial importance that it has overlooked the chances of competition from another city in the Empire State. Buffalo, with Niagara Falls behind it, is looming up as the chief manufacturing and shipping center of the interior. In the course of a few months the practicability of converting the Falls into a source of power, light, heat and refrigeration is to be demonstrated. If the company which is now constructing tunnels and setting a series of turbine-wheels, succeeds in obtaining 120,000 horse-power, every wheel in Buffalo can be turned and every house lighted and heated at the lowest cost. With this enormous electrical power transmitted and distributed throughout the city, coal will no longer be burned and steam engines will be dispensed with in manufacturing processes. Buffalo, by virtue of having the cheapest power for turning its wheels, will inevitably become the manufacturing center of the nation. This is the forecast made, not only by sanguine electricians, but also by shrewd, practical business men, who have watched the remarkable progress of the city during the last decade.

“Even without the successful operation of the tunnel plant at Niagara, Buffalo since 1880 has increased its population 89 per cent., its grain receipts 101 per cent., its lumber shipments 125 per cent., its iron receipts 226 per cent., and its coal business 367 per cent. The commerce of the great lakes has involved exchanges of wheat and coal. All the coal-carrying corporations have made Buffalo their shipping point for the West because the grain-laden fleet is available for return cargoes. The city is not only the largest grain-receiving and coal-distributing center in the world, but it is also the principal lumber port of the country and one of the greatest live-stock and fish markets. With coal, iron, lumber and salt available for the founding of new industries, it has increased its number of manufacturing industries over 200 per cent. during the last decade. These are substantial results which warrant the conclusion that the success of the project for converting Niagara Falls into a source of electric power will raise the population of Buffalo from 300,000 to 1,000,000 in another decade. The manufacturing interests of the country will inevitably center where electric power costing a fraction of either water or steam power can be supplied together with all raw materials. With the help of Niagara, Buffalo now seems destined to gain steadily upon Chicago in the race for commercial supremacy.

“It has been fortunate for Buffalo that prosperity has not overwhelmed it suddenly, and that it has had leisure for preparing for its good fortune. Already it is the handsomest residence city in America, with broad, heavily-shaded streets paved with asphalt, with a well-designed series of beautiful parks, and with public buildings, hotels, libraries and music halls worthy of a great town. If its wealthy class live in luxurious palaces incomparably finer than the residences of Eastern millionaires, its poor and humble artisans are housed in neat and tasteful cottages. It is a charming city of homes and domestic comfort, which is gradually being transformed into one of the busiest hives of American manufacturing industry. It is at least a pleasant thought that through the transmission of power now going to waste at Niagara this well-kept and wholesome town may escape the smudge of coal-burning which has fouled Chicago and impaired the freshness and beauty of Cleveland. If by the end of another decade every wheel in it from the trolleys on the electric railways to the largest iron lathe in its engineering works be turned by power generated by the turbines at Niagara, it will be another Manchester, but without smoke and grime.”

AMERICA’S HANDSOMEST CITY.

The latter portion of the Tribune article draws attention to some very noteworthy facts connected with Buffalo. When the Tribune says that Buffalo is “the handsomest residence city in America,” it tells the exact truth. All Buffalonians are deservedly proud of the beauties of their city. Many times has the writer heard exclamations of surprise and delight from the lips of strangers who, for the first time, were being driven through our beautiful avenues and park roads. Our streets are exceptionally wide and well-paved. Care in tree-planting has led to magnificent results. Well-kept, velvety lawns of spacious extent are the rule, and make fine setting for the thousands of architectural gems of homes with which the city is studded. It has been said over and over again by traveled strangers that Buffalo has more fine architecture in residences, more beautiful homes than any other city of its size in the world.

We had, at the close of the summer of 1891, about 105 lineal miles of asphalted streets. It is hard as a rock and smooth as a floor and full of restful delight to those who drive over its smooth, clean surface. Personal pride taken by the property-owners in its trim beauty leads to its being swept and cleaned daily, which is done at trifling expense. Asphalt is being laid in this city at the rate of about twenty lineal miles per year, and we have now more miles of asphalted streets than any other city in the world.

The park system of Buffalo contains about 900 acres of handsome land, which has been laid out by Frederick L. Olmsted, the eminent landscape artist, and its natural beauty wonderfully added to. It lies close to the finer residence portion of the city, and is readily reached from all sections. Land for new parks on the south side of the city and along the lake has recently been bought, making splendid additions to the park system.

The school system of Buffalo ranks deservedly high. We have over fifty grammar schools, one high school, another large school building used for the overflow and a new high school projected. We have a State Normal School, Kindergartens, dozens of parochial and private schools, and we have taken steps to establish manual training schools.

We have medical colleges of high standing, business colleges of national reputation, some splendid public libraries, several of the finest theaters in the country, and handsome churches without number. No city has more right than has Buffalo to be called the city of churches. We have about 150 of them.

The social atmosphere of Buffalo is delightful, and visitors to this city always carry away with them very pleasant memories of our social life.

In short, there is in Buffalo every refinement of civilization of the highest type. The busy man of affairs who seeks, at the same time, investment for his capital and charming social advantages for his family, can find in Buffalo all that he desires.

A CITY OF HOMES.

And there is still another phase of this subject that should be touched upon. Buffalo is a city of homes for the humble as well as the rich. It is a city full of the sweet content that belongs to the home-builder. Building and loan associations, of which we have a great number, have materially helped to bring about this result. But it is a fact that these associations thrive only in soil suited to them. They are the outgrowth of sterling worth, sobriety and manly ambition. Where they thrive we find good workmen of conservative instincts, who are averse to taking part in labor troubles. This is believed to be the chief reason why Buffalo has always enjoyed a singular freedom from strikes. Be the cause what it may, it is a fact that strikes are of a rare occurrence here; and when they have occurred they have been quickly settled. The firebrands of labor agitations have had very little encouragement here.

It is the more easy for workmen to own their own homes in Buffalo from the fact that land values here are remarkably low. We stretch over a large section of territory and have plenty of room for our people.

A first-class electric street car service gives easy and swift access to the suburbs; while the New York Central Railroad runs trains every hour each way on a Belt Line encircling the city and tapping residence portions all around the fifteen-mile circuit.

Nowhere is there a more conservative, prosperous and contented community of workingmen than in Buffalo, and this is a fact that builds up a bulwark of safety for industrial enterprises and investment of capital.

OUR ELECTRIC RAILROAD SYSTEM.

Rapid transit is one of the essentials in the busy life of a great city. Buffalo has outgrown the horse car system and has now swift electric cars speeding in all directions. All the great arteries of travel leading from the heart of the city are equipped with electric cars. The work of putting in the electric system has been one of great magnitude, as there was no cessation in the traffic while the change was being made.

Though electric cars have been in operation in some of the park roads for several years, the work of changing the system in down town streets was not started until the fall of 1890. Work was then begun on Niagara Street, and on July 4, 1891, the first electric cars were run in that important thoroughfare. Within four months traffic on the line was tripled, and it has steadily increased ever since. Elk, Seneca, Washington and Sycamore streets, all thoroughfares leading to the suburbs, were next equipped with electric cars, and at this writing (June, 1892) the work of changing the system in Main Street is progressing rapidly, and is almost completed. The system is, of course, being changed in the most important thoroughfares first, and the less important lines will undergo the same treatment in rapid succession, so that it will not be very long before horse cars will be remembered in Buffalo as the vanished symbol of a slower era. The total length of the street railroad tracks of Buffalo is over 100 miles.

Through the chief thoroughfares the electric cars run every three minutes. A single fare of five cents is charged from one end of the city to the other, with the privilege of changing from one line to another. There are no transfer charges. The company pays to the city a percentage on its earnings of two to three per cent., graded in proportion to the amount of the gross receipts. This arrangement, which was entered into during the early part of 1892, was a very welcome one to the people, particularly to workingmen, who consequently are enabled to reach their work in any part of the city, even the most distant, for a five cent fare. The swiftness of the electric cars, from eight to eighteen miles an hour, is a great factor in time-saving, and it is much appreciated by working people, as well as by business men, and all who are impatient of delay in getting from one part of the city to another.

The Buffalo Railway Company, which operates all the lines of street railroad in the city, has a capital of six million dollars, so that it is financially strong and able to carry out any improvement desired.

Cheap electric power from Niagara will, of course, be available in the running of street cars in Buffalo; and as it can be bought very much cheaper than it can be produced by the evaporation of steam it will have a potent influence in making it possible for the company to grant still further concessions to the public. The citizens’ committee which recently arbitrated between the company and the public and brought about the present satisfactory agreement had full and free access to all the books of the company, and figured out to a nicety the cost of carrying each passenger, and the amount of profit in the business. If the cost of the motive power had been cut in two, as it will be cut by the introduction of Niagara’s power, the committee would certainly have reported in favor of even better terms for the city. Thus it is a fair conclusion that the beneficent effects of cheap power generated at the Falls will be felt by every person who rides on the street cars of Buffalo.

This subject is here dwelt upon at considerable length because the writer feels that it is of great importance. Every manufacturer whose eyes are turned in this direction, and who is considering whether he shall take advantage of the peerless opportunities now offered in Buffalo, wants to know about the street car service. He wants to know, in case he should locate his plant here, how quickly and how cheaply he and his employees could get to and from their business. It is a pleasure to assure him and all others interested that the electric street railroad system of Buffalo is pronounced by experts to be the best in the United States, and also that its management is of the most liberal and progressive kind.

The street car service of a city is part of its throbbing life, part of its pulse, and by it the business health and prosperity of the city can be gauged.

SUBURBAN ELECTRIC ROADS.

Within a radius of a few miles from Buffalo there are many thriving towns. Naturally, with so many steam railroads running in all directions from this point, residents of these towns enjoy excellent railroad accommodations in traveling to and from the city. But the swift pace of present progress is all too rapid for the old way. Electric lines to suburban towns are being built or projected in surprising number. An electric line to the city of Tonawanda, connecting with the Buffalo street railroad system, and in fact being an extension of it, has been in successful operation since early in the present year (1892). It will be extended through to Niagara Falls. Two other lines of electric railroad to Tonawanda have been surveyed and active preparations are being made to build them. Both will connect with the Buffalo system, and in time will be extended to Niagara Falls. One of these has secured a very favorable route, out Delaware Avenue in a direct air line to Tonawanda, through a delightful residence district.

An electric railroad is being built to Lancaster and Depew, the latter being the new city of the New York Central Railroad just outside of Buffalo, where the Central’s locomotive shops, the Gould Car Coupler Works and other great industrial enterprises are in progress. This line will be in operation by September of this year.

Still another electric line is to be built to East Aurora, the prettiest of Erie County villages, where the famous Hamlin and Jewett stock farms are located. C. J. Hamlin, the millionaire horseman, and owner of Belle Hamlin, is one of the prominent men interested in this line.

Strong companies have also been formed to build electric lines to Hamburg, Williamsville and other suburban towns.

All of these enterprises indicate the profound belief which capitalists have in Buffalo’s future. Most of them were brought into life through the stimulating influence of cheap electric power from Niagara Falls. Those interested in these enterprises knew that cheap electric power meant tremendous and rapid growth for the city, and that the tide of prosperity would sweep out far enough to reach all towns lying contiguous to the city, and whose prosperity is part of the prosperity of Buffalo. They also knew that cheap electric power from Niagara Falls meant cheap motive power for their roads and greatly reduced cost of operation.

It is a modest assertion that the silent, swift, all-powerful currents of electricity flowing into Buffalo from Niagara will touch every craft, every branch of industry. It will quicken all these into renewed activity and point a thousand new ways for the employment of money, brains and muscle. It will give us light, heat and refrigeration, and power for the mightiest and most delicate machinery.

The smoke cloud of industry that hovers over and shrouds the manufacturing district of every great city, will gradually lift from ours as the consumption of coal gives place to smokeless electric power. In a few years it will be all gone, and Buffalo, the “Electric City,” will be famed as the cleanest and healthiest city in the world.

“BUFFALO’S GOLD MINE.”

Some years ago, Mr. James B. Stafford, of this city, then president of the Buffalo Business Men’s Association, conceived the idea of offering a prize of $100,000 for the best plan of utilizing the current of Niagara River. He and over one hundred others subscribed $1,000 each to a fund for the purpose, and the attention of scientific men in all parts of the civilized world was directed to the problem. This problem has been solved in the development of the tunnel project.

Mr. Stafford is a keen, shrewd, level-headed business man, and has made a large fortune by judicious investments in Buffalo real estate. He believes that Buffalo will have a million population within ten years, as a result of an industrial revolution in this city that will amaze the world, the chief and controlling reason for which will be the introduction of cheap electric power.

THE BUFFALO LIBRARY.