A Walking Tour of North Tonawanda, New York
By Doug Gelbert
()
About this ebook
There is no better way to see America than on foot. And there is no better way to appreciate what you are looking at than with a walking tour. Whether you are preparing for a road trip or just out to look at your own town in a new way, a downloadable walking tour is ready to explore when you are.
Each walking tour describes historical and architectural landmarks and provides pictures to help out when those pesky street addresses are missing. Every tour also includes a quick primer on identifying architectural styles seen on American streets.
By the 1830s both the Erie Canal and the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad had come together at the Niagara River, assuring the industrial development of the Town of Tonawanda that had been settled here back in 1805. The first to take advantage of the advantageous situation was the East Boston Timber Company that purchased timber rights on White’s Island, now Tonawanda Island, in 1833. Soon they were loading barges high with fine white oak bound for eager markets on the Eastern seaboard.
But it was not the hardwoods of western New York that were to make Tonawanda but the seemingly limitless supply of high quality white pine from the vast forests of the Upper Midwest in Michigan and Minnesota and Wisconsin. In 1861, J. S. Noyes created the first practical cargo barge for open water by removing the mast and deck from an old schooner, an invention that revolutionized Great Lakes shipping. Timber would be loaded onto barges and pulled - sometimes four or five at a time - across the Great Lakes by steam tugs bound for Tonawanda and a trip down the Erie Canal.
Tonawanda, developed on both sides of the Erie Canal/Tonawanda Creek, split in 1865 when North Tonawanda was incorporated as a village. There was some ongoing nastiness over the use of a gravel pit but mostly the political management of communities in two different counties was becoming unwieldy. It was North Tonawanda that became “Lumber City.” The first cargo of lumber unloaded for distribution was in 1867. By 1890 over 700,000,000 feet of sawed lumber was docked here and for a brief time North Tonawanda was the world’s largest lumber port.
There were more than 150 lumber companies operating in town. Most were dealing in the usual suspects - fence posts, railroad ties, wooden laths and the like. J.S. Bliss and Company became the second largest manufacturer of shingles in the world, turning out as many as 56,000,000 white pine shingles of all shapes and sizes in a single season. The Ray H. Bennett Lumber Company produced kit homes sold around the nation and Canada for 70 years. But the abundance of lumber also attracted some more colorful manufacturers: Allan Herschell was turning out the nation’s finest merry-go-rounds with hand-carved wooden horses by the 1880s and Rudolph Wurlitzer established a plant for crafting organs in 1908.
When the lumber fields were depleted and the railroads pushed further west, new industries of steel, paper, chemicals and auto parts manufacturing set up shop due to the established bulk transportation infrastructure. Today the lumberyards are all gone and so are the rapids in the water that led the Senecas to call it Tonawanda Creek meaning “Swift Running Water.” Our walking tour will work into the neighborhood spawned by the wealth of that lumber but first we will begin at the spot that started it all, looking out at the western end of the historic Erie Barge Canal...
Read more from Doug Gelbert
Look Up, San Diego! A Walking Tour of Balboa Park Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Look Up, Charleston! A Walking Tour of Charleston, South Carolina: The Battery Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Look Up, Long Beach! A Walking Tour of Long Beach, California Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Williamsburg, Virginia Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5A Walking Tour of Aiken, South Carolina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of The New Orleans French Quarter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Greensboro, North Carolina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLook Up, Nashville! A Walking Tour of Nashville, Tennessee Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Miami Beach, Florida Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLook Up, Tucson, Arizona! A Walking Tour of Tucson, Arizona Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLook Up, Charleston! A Walking Tour of Charleston, South Carolina: Walled City Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Look Up, Chicago! A Walking Tour of The Loop (North End) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Georgetown, South Carolina Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A Walking Tour of Uniontown, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLook Up, Madison! A Walking Tour of Madison, Wisconsin Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Look Up, Atlanta! A Walking Tour of Downtown Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Walking Tour of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLook Up, Austin! A Walking Tour of Austin, Texas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Montgomery, Alabama Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Salisbury, North Carolina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Jacksonville, Florida Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLook Up, Charleston! A Walking Tour of Charleston, South Carolina: Business District Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Look Up, Boise! A Walking Tour of Boise, Idaho Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Pittsburgh's Business District Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Bordentown, New Jersey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLook Up, Phoenix, Arizona! A Walking Tour of Phoenix, Arizona Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of St. Augustine, Florida Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of New York City's Upper West Side Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Look Up, Oakland! A Walking Tour of Oakland, California Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of A Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to A Walking Tour of North Tonawanda, New York
Related ebooks
A Walking Tour of Carbondale, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNewport Revisited Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of the Boston's North End Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of East Greenwich, Rhode Island Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Pawtucket, Rhode Island Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of New Castle, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Torrington, Connecticut Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Titusville, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Newburgh, New York Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Connellsville, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Honesdale, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Millville, New Jersey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Danville, Virginia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Swampscott, Massachusetts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Fall River, Massachusetts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Ithaca, New York Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of North Adams, Massachusetts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Anderson, South Carolina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Johnstown, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Wethersfield, Connecticut Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Norwalk, Connecticut Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Newberry, South Carolina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Williamsport, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Gloucester, Massachusetts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Elmira, New York Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Andover, Massachusetts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Wakefield, Rhode Island Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of Elizabeth, New Jersey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Walking Tour of North Stonington, Connecticut Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies) History For You
Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within US Slave Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"America is the True Old World" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook, Vol. 1: To 1877 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Footsteps of the Cherokees: A Guide to the Eastern Homelands of the Cherokee Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hidden Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wager Disaster: Mayem, Mutiny and Murder in the South Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Secrets of the Freemasons: The Truth Behind the World's Most Mysterious Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: And Other Small Events That Changed History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExtreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win | Summary & Key Takeaways Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American History in 50 Events: History by Country Timeline, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Memory of Fire Trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Roland S. Martin's White Fear Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oregon Trail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition] Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Constitution of the United States of America: 1787 (Annotated) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Halloween: The History of America's Darkest Holiday Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not My Father's Son: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for A Walking Tour of North Tonawanda, New York
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
A Walking Tour of North Tonawanda, New York - Doug Gelbert
A Walking Tour of North Tonawanda, New York
a walking tour in the Look Up, America series from walkthetown.com
by Doug Gelbert
published by Cruden Bay Books at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 by Cruden Bay Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the Publisher.
By the 1830s both the Erie Canal and the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad had come together at the Niagara River, assuring the industrial development of the Town of Tonawanda that had been settled here back in 1805. The first to take advantage of the advantageous situation was the East Boston Timber Company that purchased timber rights on White’s Island, now Tonawanda Island, in 1833. Soon they were loading barges high with fine white oak bound