Buffalo Bits and Pieces 1888

   The highest temperature since the Government signal office has had an office here was reached August 4, 1877, and was 94.2 degrees.  On only three other dates do records of the office show a temperature higher than 90--namely June 30th 1878, August 28 1881, and July 3, 1887. The lowest temperature recorded is 13.5 degrees below zero, January 25, 1884. The annual mean temperature since the establishment of the signal office 17 years ago, has been 46.3 degrees.  The average yearly precipitation was 37.92 inches.

  The government weather observer says "though the temperature in Buffalo does not reach as high as other lake cities, yet the amount of moisture is considerably greater, as the lake is to the southwest.  The Spring in Buffalo is generally later than at other stations (and no ice boom, Ed.), but the cold waves of early winter are felt much more severely at other lake stations than here." This official and indisputable record shows an unusually equitable and temperate climate. In Summer, especially, the climate of Buffalo is all that a climate should be or could be.

Natural Increase  Buffalo's vital statistics for the year 1887: deaths, 4,580; births, 6,900; marriages, 1,800

Directory Census  The Buffalo City Directory for 1888 contains 79,557 names, an increase of 1,557 over the preceding year.  The annual average ratio of increase in population for five years past, if maintained till 1900, will give Buffalo a half a million inhabitants.

Streets in Buffalo  Total length, opened and surveyed, 353.27 miles.  Total length paved, 164.22 miles of which over 40 miles are asphalted.  Buffalo has 957 streets, of which only 92 are mentioned in the fashionable "Address Book".

For Wheelmen  Buffalo is a paradise of bicyclers. In no other place can such a combination of good country roads , parkways and asphalt pavements be found.

The Police Force of Buffalo is 345 strong.

No Excuse For Ignorance  Buffalo has 61 public school buildings and 635 teachers, and the system costs about half a million a year.  There are about 40 private colleges, academies, and schools. The first school-house in Buffalo was built at the corner of Pearl and Swan Streets.

The First Town lot was sold in Buffalo in 1804, there was half an acre of it, and it brought $135.

Buffalo Homeopathic Hospital

A Prosperous Neighbor  The port of Tonawanda received in 1887, 501,000,000 feet of lumber by water 31,000,000 feet by rail; aggregate, 532,000,000 feet.  Many of the largest Tonawanda lumber operators are residents of Buffalo.

Homeopathic Hospital   This is situated at No. 74 Collage Street. It's object is the maintenance of Homeopathic medical, surgical and lying-in hospital. The total number of patients received last year was 300.

Edward J. Malloy - Thank You

Happy Birthday Dad, We Miss You Very Much

Bob  Jerry  Irene  Dad  Ma  Janet  Judy

S/Sgt. Edward J Malloy
Army Air Force

A tribute to my Dad on his Birthday today.

Born October 13th 1919 and passed away 

last November. Although your not here in 

person we know you are here in spirit and 

we will celebrate your life with us, today. 

Thank You for your service to your Country 
and to our family, and the many sacrifices
 you made for both, they are greatly appreciated 
and will never be forgotten. 

We are all proud to say, you are our Father.

  At times throughout his life, he was a farmer; bred and raised draught horses with his father, two brothers and sister in Michigan; hawked the Buffalo Times on Broadway and Fillmore; a Merchant Marine on the package freighters on the Great Lakes; worked at Curtiss-Wright during then after the war and Bell Aircraft also. During the war he trained as a flight engineer/mechanic/pilot and tail-gunner on the B-25 Mitchell Bombers in the Mediterranean Theatre, 12th Air Force 57th Bomb Wing. He flew an incredible 63 combat missions as attested by the certificate below.  Received AIR MEDAL for his actions on a mission over Italy on July 12 1944.

Harbor Inn - Ohio & Chicago Streets Buffalo

  

   After the war, became partner with his brother-in-law in the bakery business in Niagara Falls NY with the Polonia Bakery.  Around 1950 he and a friend started a steeple-jack business, painting and repairing smokestacks, radio towers, flagpoles and all manner of high and difficult places around Buffalo. Started work at Curtiss-Wright again while at the same time helping out at his sisters bar and restaurant, The Harbor Inn. Built his own house from the ground, up, in Clarence. 
   Took over The Harbor Inn in the 1970's. Expanded the business with a new dining room attracting a downtown crowd along with the sailors and truck drivers it was so famous for. It became a center for tourism and tours and a museum of Buffalo history. A meeting place for preservation groups, politicians and media types alike. Due to a downturn in the industrial climate around the waterfront, my parents retired it in 1995.  

Thank You Again Dad

***********************************************

Trained on B-26 (3rd from right)

Edward Malloy on Camel

As a Merchant Marine (center)

The Playboy of Buffalo!

Story Written by David Kaplan for The Industrial Heritage Newsletter 1993

David Kaplan's Playboy # 83 of Ninety-Seven

   The Playboy story began in Buffalo after WWII when Lou Horwitz, who had been in the automobile business since 1935, opened a used car lot on the corner of Deleware and Hertel. Horowitz sent cars to Norm Richardson Collision Shop at 988 Ellicott St. for repair. While at Richardson's shop Horowitz learned that Richardson and Charlie Thomas were working on a three wheel car.  Thomas had built a car in the 1930's with the help of Richardson. Lou Horwitz had long believed there was a need for a second or companion car in the American automobile field. Therefore, he joined forces with Thomas and Richardson to form the Playboy Motorcar Corporation with Horwitz as president, Thomas as vice president and Richardson as treasurer. 

  Lou Horwitz put up $50,000 to build the prototype Playboy. Thomas designed the car and the three men built it in secret over seven months at Richardson shop. On February 18, 1947, the playboy was displayed at the Buffalo Hotel Statler. The Prototype Playboy was a soft-top convertible with a special twelve-head Continental twenty-horsepower engine mounted in the rear.  The car featured four wheel independent suspension and an automatic transmission.

Demand Ran High

David Kaplan's # 83

   During the Playboy's week long display at the Statler, the car generated a great deal of publicity.  The three principals of the Playboy Motor Car Corporation decided to build the cars while demand was high.  They also abandoned the prototype rear engine model because of anticipated engineering, procurement and servicing difficulties. 

   In May 1947, the company started production of the pilot model of the Playboy with an all steel convertible top and a Continental engine mounted in front. Using Richardson idea of making the car as easy to produce as possible, the company purchased chassis parts from various manufacturers, while they built the body and trim at the Ellicott Street shop. They used a Borg Warner  three-speed transmission with overdrive, and a shortened rear axle from a Studebaker.  They purchased Continental and Hercules engines because both engines fit the cars with little modification. The original Continental engines were only forty horsepower.  Further testing and development indicated that this engine was inadequate with the overdrive transmission, so Continental bored out the cylinders to produce a forty-eight horsepower engine.

   The premier showing of the pilot Playboy was held on August 20, 1947 at the Congress Hotel in Chicago.  Prospective dealers and distributers were recruited after inspecting the car with a four man crew that included Lou Horwitz. Playboy anticipated distributing it's cars primarily through dealer franchises and distributers. Franchises--promising little more than the right to handle the cars--were sold to prospective dealers at the cost of $1,000 per every twenty thousand people in the sales area.  The company marketed between eight and nine hundred franchises. 

Ambitious Goals ~ In November 1947, the company's bid $2,259,000 for the former Chevrolet Plant #1 on Kenmore Ave. was accepted by the War Assets Administration of the federal government.  On January 10th, 1948, the Playboy Motor Car Corporation held the grand opening of the new plant.  Lou Horwitz stated, "with the opening of the large up to date plant in Tonawanda, pilot production will be moved to the new site...Currently production is at two cars per week, and we have completed fourteen cars to date...The company will be tooling up the Tonawanda plant for the mass production of the cars at a rate of one hundred thousand a year."

   In the February 1948 issue of Mechanics Illustrated, Tom McCahill reported favorably on the Playboy.  On April 17, 1948, The Buffalo Evening News reported that the Playboy set a record for driving from New York to Los Angeles: sixty two hours and twenty minutes. Driver Robert McKenzie reported that he faced the worst weather and road conditions in twenty-five years of auto testing and speed driving, nonetheless he set the record with the Playboy by averaging fifty miles per hour. In a survey of five thousand engineers taken by Automotive Engineer, the Playboy was voted best car in the bantam size.

   In order to produce one hundred thousand cars in 1948, the company needed to raise $20 million.  Lou Horwitz decided to sell 20 million shares of stock to raise $17 million.  The sale of dealer franchises was expected to raise the remainder $3 million. On May 20, 1948, Playboy issued a stock prospectus of 20 million shares of stock at $1 per share. Walter Tellier of Walter Tellier Co. was chosen as underwriter for the sale.  Under the underwriting agreement, the company would receive no funds until they received firm commitments for $8,500,000.  

   Tellier staged showings in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo and Detroit. They surrounded the cars with salesmen, prospectuses and order blanks. They drove across the country giving prospective buyers a chance to test-drive the car.  By June Tellier had passed the $8.5 million mark and was confident in selling out the entire offering.  On August 23, 1948, Tellier had announced they had orders for ten million shares and started to solicit payment. 

The Tucker Investigation

     But during the Playboy stock offering, an apparently unrelated event, changed the course of the Playboy Motor Corporation. The Securities and Exchange Commission investigated another independent automobile manufacturer, The Tucker Corporation. The SEC alleged that Tucker was attempting to sell stock with no intention of manufacturing automobiles. Tucker was eventually acquitted, but in the meantime the SEC investigation caused the public to be suspicious of Playboy's stock offering. Only $2.5 million was raised.  Lou Horwitz announced that Playboy would start production on a more modest scale instead of waiting to acquire the financing necessary to meet earlier production goals. The company withdrew it's stock offering and revised it's plans to include interim tool and dies and temporarily reduced production program.

   By october 1948, Playboy had completed it's pilot production program. The last pilot model Playboy had a serial number of 000094 with a Continental engine. They also built a station wagon with a Hercules engine and a ninety-six inch wheel base. The body of the station wagon combined wood and steel; the frame was welded to the chassis.
   In March 1949 Playboy had another stock offering through Aetna Securities for $3.5 million. By then, engineering to set up production at the plant was substantially completed. The production dies had been manufactured in Detroit, and Playboy had 723 dealers and twenty-seven distributers who had raised over $2 million for the company. Nonetheless, the Tucker Company's stock fiasco continued to haunt Playboy. The Publics response to Playboys new stock offering was nothing.

Horwitz' Appeal
    On april 14, 1949 the Playboy Car Corporation filed a petition for reorganization under the federal bankruptcy act. They announce withdrawal of the current stock offering.  In June, Horwitz wrote an appeal for contributions to continue production of the Playboy. Remembering the SEC charges against Tucker, Horwitz noted that the Playboy was "Completely engineered and ready for production. Mass production dies are completed." However, believing that reorganizing was futile because the Playboy was not  in production, Horwitz wrote, "My only hope of carrying on is...by a general appeal for the funds for those who have confidence in the future of America and free enterprise. At no time has any undertaking involved more sincerity and sheer determination.  With this thought in mind, I feel this appeal cannot an will not be in vain. Won't you help me make this product possible?"
    Lou Horwitz plea was denied.  At 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, February 15, 1950 his dream was auctioned off.  the Playboy Motor Car Corporation had built ninety-seven cars, including two station wagons, and one production car. At the auction, the company's assets were sold to Lytemobile Corporation who tried unsuccessfully to produce the car.

   In 1976, the Playboy started it's long journey back to Buffalo. Milton and Tootie Kaplan, Lou Horwitz's daughter, brought the eighty-third Playboy back home. In 1989, David Kaplan brought the soft-top prototype and a production car that was not fully completed back to Buffalo. Subsequent trips brought Playboy #'s 7, 41, 68, 92 and 94 home.  Currently(1993), the prototype is undergoing a restoration which should be completed shortly.
   David Kaplan, Lou Horwitz's grandson, adds:  "The prototype's restoration is my tribute to my grandfather.  For as long as I live, his dream of the Playboy will never die".
Editors Note:  The Playboy Motor Car Company, was the source for the name of "Playboy Magazine". The name was suggested to Hugh Hefner by his close friend, co-founder and eventual executive vice-president Eldon Sellers, whose mother had worked as a secretary for the automobile company's Chicago sales office before it went bankrupt.  If you would like to see many more of the Playboy cars, many in need of restoration, and many restored, go to: playboymotorcars.com ~   He probably has pictures of all known Playboys around the country.  If you know of any, or maybe you would like to restore a piece of Buffalo History, visit that site.

   

Grain Elevators - As They Were (Part Three)

The Great Northern Elevator on the Busy City Ship Canal Around 1900

BUFFALO'S VAST CANONS OF COMMERCE

A SCENE IN THE GREATEST GRAIN ELEVATOR DISTRICT ON EARTH -

HOW THE GRAIN IS HANDLED - THE WORK OF THE SCOOPER DESCRIBED -

STUNNING FIGURES OF BUFFALO'S STORAGE AND TRANS-SHIPMENT CAPACITY

Buffalo Morning Express May 14, 1899 (continued)

   These new elevators are of steel, and their bins are great steel cylinders. The Great Northern and the Electric Elevators, in Buffalo are of this new type. In the Great Northern the bins stand upon pillars, in the Electric they stand upon the floor.  These bins vary in size, but run up to 80,000 bushels in the Great Northern and 100,000 in the Electric. The ordinary capacity of wooden bins is about 5,000. 

Great Northern Under Construction 1897

   To comprehend the increase in the size of elevators, compare Joseph Darts with it's 55,000 bushels, and the Great Northern with it's 3,000,000 bushels. The Great Northern is 120 feet wide and about 400 feet long, and so covers more than an acre.  The sides are 102 feet high.  From the center of the building rises a cupola 40 feet wide.  The distance from the ground to the bottom of this cupola is 116 feet and to the top of the cupola 164 feet. In this Great Northern Elevator Elevator could be stored the corn or oats from more than 100,000 acres of land, or the wheat from more than 200,000 acres.  In the early days of steam it was believed that 800 bushels of grain was all that could be lifted and correctly measured in one day.  At this rate it would take ten years to fill the Great Northern. Fortunately for the Great Northern the rate is much faster now. Using it's three marine legs the Great Northern can handle about 30,000 bushels an hour under actual working conditions. In the Great Northern Elevator, as in other modern elevators, only one leg is stationary. The other two can be moved to suit the hatchways, so shall all three can be set at work together on the same vessel.  

The Electric Elevator on Childs Street - 1897

  (Editor) 'What the reporter fails to make note of, is the elevator's use of electricity instead of the usual steam power, which is really what took it to a new level as far as modern grain elevators were concerned. The Great Northern and the Electric were the first two electrically powered grain elevators in the world.'

   During the last two weeks the public has heard a great deal about the scoopers. These scoopers refused to go to work for the general contractor for grain handling, declaring in substance that they did not want to work for a middleman for various reasons, but wished to be employed directly by the Lake Carriers Association and the Western Elevating Company. Their refusal to work tied up work on the grain vessels, the river filled with boats waiting to be unloaded, and the discharge of cargoes was very slow. There are those who do not know what the work of the scoopers is and a description will be of interest.

Scoopers Maneuvering The Shovel into Position

  The perfecting of elevator machinery has not been able to do away with the labor of grain shoveling. The elevator leg moves freely up and down and descends into the hold as fast as the level of grain sinks. It cannot be moved sidewise, however, it must remain in the same position in the hatchway, and hence there is a need for shoveling the grain from underneath the decks, to where the leg can reach it. Mechanical ingenuity have perfected steam shovels worked by ropes in the elevator, which pass down the center of the hold, carrying the grain along to the elevator leg. But the grain on the sides cannot be reached by the shovels, so men have to be stationed in the hold to shovel or scoop the grain in front of the steam shovels, and to trim the boat by evening up it's diminishing cargo.

Scoopers Moving the Grain To The Marine Leg
With Power Shovels Rigged into The Marine Tower

    These men who thus scoop the grain out to where the machine shovels can get it, are the "Scoopers". The Rev. Mr. Albertson, a Buffalo pastor, said about them the other day: "These men are enclosed in almost air-tight compartments and they labor hard in a cloud of dust amid intense heat and I am not surprised at the claim they make that no man can stand it many years. The fact is that on land there is no other occupation that more closely resembles the conditions surrounding the stokers on a man-o-war."

Power Shovels At Work

  Buffalo has become an elevator city because it is at the end of lake navigation. The grain coming down by boat from the western shipping points, had to be unloaded here and put on to railroad cars and canalboats. Elevators were the natural product of these conditions. They accomplish mechanically and cheaply the work of transfer.  Most of the big elevators have water on one front and railroad tracks on another, and so form a direct connecting link between water transportation and land transportation. Not all are so provided however; there is the big Watson Elevator, for instance, with it's capacity of 600,000 bushels, without rail connection. Years ago the canal did most of the carrying; but as the railroad rates fell, the railroads got an increasing share of the business. And last year out of 222,000,000 bushels of grain exported, the railroads carried about 180,000,000.

Watson Elevator, On It's Own Island, Could
Transfer Only to Canal Boats

   The report of the Buffalo Merchants Exchange for 1898 shows a total of 40 elevators, six transfer towers, and 8 floating elevators (which are really floating towers, since they have no storage capacity). The capacity of the 40 elevators was put at 20,960,000 bushels with one of the transfer towers credited with a capacity of 40,000 bushels. There are facilities for receiving from lake vessels and railroads and transporting to canalboats and cars daily, 5,500,000 bushels from the 54 elevators, transfers and floaters.
   Buffalo stands first in the world in the application and use of marine elevating machinery. No port can rival it in the quantity of grain elevated from vessels, or in the capacity to handle this vessel grain.  Against our dozens of marine elevators, no city up the lakes has more than two or three. Here is Buffalo's pre-eminence; it is the greatest port in the world for the transfer of grain from boat to shore.

Floating Elevator Transferring Grain From
Small Vessel to Larger One

Editors Note: Buffalo, in short, was the largest grain transfer port in the world and later the largest flour milling center in the world for many decades. In the last part of the 19th century Buffalo was the 4th largest port in the world in terms of tonnage! Not bad for a City whose lake is frozen over 2-3 months out of the year.  The greatest grain flow in the world was down the Great Lakes from Minnesota to Buffalo and then transferring to seaboard for export.  Buffalo's Grain Elevators have literally fed the world! We were very proud of them back then, and we should be equally proud of the roll they played now, from a historical sense, and should take full advantage of that incredible part of our history in planning waterfront attractions today. A number of the elevators along our waterfront are still operating, and milling operations are still going strong at General Mills and the ADM (Pillsbury) plant on Ganson Street. In fact the old Conagra (Lake & Rail) Elevator on Childs Street has reopened for grain storage in the last couple of years.

     Like it or not, this is Buffalo's Heritage, It's History, It's Legacy to the world! We can not let waterfront planning go on without commemorating and showing off this legacy. Some time in the last few months(spring 2012) a marker on the new Commercial Slip Bridge celebrating Joseph Dart and the first Grain Elevator in the world, was removed and replaced with something else! Excuse Me! Joseph Dart(grain elevator) and Samuel Wilkeson, who built our first harbor, should not only have markers celebrating their achievements, there should be statues in their honor! The Dart Elevator should be rebuilt somewhere in Canalside and showcased with a 19th century sail vessel unloading cargo docked next to it, where people could go in and relive that early technology and the life of  the 1840's dockworker. That is the kind of attractions worthy of re-developement. So much money being thrown around in Canalside and so much ignorance of the true significance of that area.

Thank You
Jerry M. Malloy

Dart Street, So Who Was Joseph Dart?

GRAIN SCOOPERS PHOTO PAGE

Grain Elevators - As They Were (Part Two)

From L to R - Lake Erie, City Ship Canal, Peck Slip, Buffalo River - Connecting Terminal Elevator (left)
Lyons Elevator (Center), Wilkeson (right 2 towers) C.J. Wells (far right)  (click photo to enlarge)

Buffalo Morning Express May 14, 1899 (continued)
   The elevators are of two kinds: those which store the grain and those which merely transfer it directly from lake vessels to canal boat or car.  The storage elevators are in principle all alike.  Their vast enclosure is given up to huge bins for the storing of grain; machinery for the weighing and moving of grain; in some cases apparatus for cleaning or drying grain; and steam engines to furnish motive power for the whole. The transfer towers have merely the machinery for transferring the grain; they perform an office like that of moveable cranes.   The elevators as already mentioned, might be compared to huge mosquitos.  

Marine "Leg" at Watson Elevator - Union & Bennett
Elevators in Back L to R

    They plunge a bill-like "leg" (marine leg-Ed.) into the vessels to extract the grain. The old elevators had one leg, the newer ones have two or three.  These legs play within a narrow slit, and can be moved up and down so as to be lowered into the holds of steamers. The leg of an elevator contains an endless belt studded at short intervals by cups or buckets.  The leg is thrust a little distance into the grain in the hold of a boat; the belt begins to turn, and the cups scoop up the grain and carry it into the building. First the grain goes into bins where it is weighed in bulk, then it is carried to other bins for storage. The main purpose of the Buffalo elevators is to take the grain from lake vessels and put it into railroad cars or canalboats for transportation to the seaboard.  Many of the elevators can unload into either cars or canalboats, some into canalboats alone.  The apparatus for emptying the grain from the bin into the canalboat or car is very simple.  The grain runs by its own weight from the bin overhead through a tube or chute into the car or boat below.

City Ship Canal Looking North From the Frontier Elevator - Center of Picture Small "Pointed" Structure
is a Transfer Tower, no Storage Capacity - Connecting Terminal Elevator on Left - Lyon Elevator on
 right - Watson Elevator in background with cupola

Joseph Dart

  In the handling of grain, as in other employments of man, there has been a gradual development of machinery and a corresponding lessoning of the proportion of human labor. All grain was once taken from the holds of vessels by the slow process of shoveling it into barrels, hoisting it by a tackle, weighing it in a hopper and scales swung over the hatchway of the craft, and carrying it into the warehouse on men's shoulders. Joseph Dart was the man who put an end to this slow and vexatious method, and on the wharves of Buffalo he erected the first steam storage and transfer elevator in the world. He built this elevator in 1842-43 on the Banks of the Buffalo River at it's junction with the Evans Ship Canal, where later rose the big Bennett Elevator.  In it he successfully applied the old elevator and conveyor principle which had been in use for half a century in the mills. The Dart Elevator had at first a capacity of but 55,000 bushels, but this was doubled three years afterward. In it's first year it unloaded about 230,000 bushels of grain.
   From this little Dart Elevator have sprung

Model of Dart Elevator

the elevators of today. There have been a gradual growth in size, and an improvement of methods, but the principle remains the same as 50 years ago. (same principle used till 2003-Ed.) The Dart Elevator was burned in 1862 or 1863, and fire has destroyed many of it's descendants, yet some of the most active elevators of today date from the 60's. Most of the elevators have wooden bins, and all, or nearly all, are covered alike with corrugated iron. The newest elevators differ, however, from the old ones, much as the modern steel-frame office buildings differ from the old style office buildings.  The new elevators are of steel, and their bins are great steel cylinders. 

End of Part Two,

PART 3 - The steel elevators and Grain Shovelers (Scoopers) 

GRAIN SCOOPERS PHOTO PAGE

The Historic Buffalo River Tour 2018

Grain Elevators - As They Were (Part One)

Looking North on Buffalo River From Entrance to Clark & Skinner Canal 
Near Michigan Ave.

Buffalo Morning Express May 14, 1899

    Drawing near Buffalo upon the deck of a lake steamer, or looking across the broad bay toward the city from the south shore, you see a low strand, from which spring a great row of gigantic buildings which loom up out of all proportion to the narrow base upon which they stand.  In the evening sunlight which falls upon their faces, they are a reddish brown, the smokey air of Buffalo softens their outlines, and their few small windows twinkle. They look fantastic and unreal! It appears hardly credible that such mighty masses, if substantial fabrics, could be supported upon such a shallow crust of earth.  They seem like monstrous mushroom growths, sprung in a moment from the waters edge, and ready as suddenly again to disappear.

Wilkeson & C.J. Wells Elevators at Foot of 
Washington & Indiana Sts. Elevator on left is the
 Lyons on Peck Slip

   These giant structures are the elevators of Buffalo.  As the boat passes up the Buffalo River on its way to the wharf, you get a closer view of them.  There are few places on earth where you can find a sight to equal it.  Huddling on the sides of the river, and on the slips and canals off to the side, are the elevators.  The banks of the stream are low and alluvial and are protected, strengthened by rows of piling. From these timbers spring abruptly the immense structures, towering up 100 or 150 feet-great, uncouth, brown or grey masses, bordering and over hanging the stream like castles!  Each one stands by itself; if they were built continuously, to pass along them would be like threading a canyon of a Western river.  Their most striking characteristic is their soaring height. Broad as they are upon the earth, it is the length of their perpendicular lines that most impresses the eye.  There is nothing else with which the elevators can be compared, because there is nothing else exactly like them.    

   Here is a mighty aggregation of central body and buttresses. Adjoining it is a single clear cut tower bulging out in middle like a morel. In all or nearly all, an excrescence juts over the water, and from this hangs the great bill or "leg", which the elevator, like a mosquito, plunges into the vessels to suck up their grain.  Most of the elevators bear at their highest peak, a big water tank, for fire is their deadliest enemy.  The river winds this way and that, but the elevators follow it wherever it goes.  Between them, up and down, passes a continual procession of tugs, passenger steamers, propellers, barges and steam launches, and the air resounds day and night, with the chug of the steam engines, the sharp squeal of pilots' signals and the hoarse bellow of propeller whistles.

Unloading at the Eastern Elevator,  Buffalo NY

End of Part One 
  

PART TWO (Click Here)

Part Three

GRAIN SCOOPERS PHOTO PAGE 

THE "AUTOMATIC MAN" OF TONAWANDA!

   American ingenuity is ever striving for startling effects. It is never satisfied. Ordinary achievements seem beneath its attention. It looks beyond, even if the object of its aim be more or less fantastic. One of the latest freaks of mechanical skill is the contsruction, by Louis Philip Perew, of Tonawanda, NewYork - a small town near Niagra Falls - of a gigantic man. Parew, with all the ardour of a modern Frankenstein, has endeavoured to make his man as life like in appearance as possible. Not only is its outward form a close model of a human being, but within it have been secreted mechanical devices which endow the automation with weird properties, making it even more nearly resemble an intelligent being....The Frankenstein of Tonawanda has brought into existance a thing of wood, rubber, and metals, which walks, talks, runs, jumps, rolls its eyes - imitating to a nicety almost every action of the original on which it is founded... By W.B. Northrop - extract from article published in Strand Magazine of London, England.

Buffalo Express Sept 2, 1900

Walking Automaton is a Mechanical Wonder

----------------

This Man May Walk For Years Without Rest or Sleep,  

Yet Never Feel Fatigue or Need For Food or Drink

-----------------

Tonawanda Man Invents a Graven Image in the Form of 

a Man That Does Not Live, But Gives All Evidence of Life

-----------------

May tour the continent to advertise the Pan-American

Perew and the "Automatic Man"

   A walking automaton has been invented by Louis Philip Perew of Tonawanda, which eclipses, so far as known, any other similar invention ever made. Of heroic proportions this mechanical wonder is shaped in very way like a man. Not only can it walk but it's eyes roll, it's head turns and all it's joints move naturally.

   It can even talk. To test the powers of the giant fully, it is proposed to walk him across the continent accompanied by only two human companions.  It is expected that other and similar walking men will be made and toured through the country in order to advertise the Pan-American Exposition.  A man that walks is a common sight. A dead man that walks is occasionally beheld by sailors on a Saturday Night.  But a man that walks long distance that never was alive is something so  unheard of that it is hard to believe that such a one could exist.  But exist it does, and walk it can, as any doubters will soon be able to see. For nine years Louis Philip Perew labored with his body and his brain at a huge undertaking.  Now the work is finished and he has a graven image made of wood and metal, in the likeness of a man.  And it walks!

    Seven feet five inches high, of  excellent proportions, this mechanical man is to every appearance a human being.  He is well formed, of heroic stature, and has a dignified military carriage. He has the quick step of the perfect heel and toe walker.  His features are of the typical American and so natural that one would imagine them of natural flesh instead of aluminum.  He is dressed in the height of fashion in a white duck outing suit and cap of the latest shape.
  Eyes of perfect blue roll in the head and gaze upon those who surround him, putting a feeling in the awed spectator that half convinces him that the automation is something more than a mechanical construction.  Such is the giant soulless man that has been made in Tonawanda, and that will walk, it is expected, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Automatic Man and Carriage

   It was in 1891 that Louis Perew struck upon the idea of a walking giant. For weeks and months he worked diligently. At last he had a figure carved  out of wood, three feet high, attached to a cart. When placed on a smooth surface, and provided that someone pushed the cart, the wooden figure would walk as though pulling the entire rig himself.
   Tonawanda men thought they saw much money in the building of an even larger automaton, purchased a share in the idea and had it patented.  A large figure was built and attached to an immense and very heavy vehicle. A man was put inside the rig to propel it by hand, and exhibitions were given about the streets of the village. It's leg motions, although patterned after mankind's, was still crude. There was a quiver and a jerk as the legs came forward that was not natural. The inventors moneyed friends became less enthusiastic, and in the end let the automation project drop.  In 1899, Charles A. Thomas of Cleveland, Ohio ran across the old automation and became interested in it's development.  Under Thomas's backing the U.S. Automaton Co. was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York.  Money was at once spent in lavish sums in the purchase of the very best material; the service of able mechanical engineers were secured and inventor Perew was given a free hand in the construction of his automaton.

Rear View of Apparatus

  After months of hard labor in the spacious hall of the old abandoned armory in Main Street, the mechanical giant began to grow. One week ago it stood before the stockholders of the company completed and ready to walk at the bidding of it's owners.
  In the company of Mr. Perew, the Courier correspondent was shown the automaton and it's mechanical make-up. A signal from the inventor caused assistant Fred Michaels to set the mechanism to work.  There was a slight dull noise, the giant raised it's right foot, and with the ease of a human being took a step forward, following with the left foot and so on, until the automaton was encircling the spacious hall, pulling a beautiful rig at a rate of speed far in excess of an ordinary walk of a good size man....Mr. Perew placed an obstruction in the path of the approaching giant. With eyes turning in their sockets the huge man seemed to discern the act of the inventor and when near the obstruction it stepped upon the obstacle and down to the floor again with perfect ease and went on its way, creating no other noise than that mad by heavy tread of 13 1/2 shoes.  Corners of the hall were turned in such a manner  as reminded the spectators of a living being, while the perfect action of the hip, knee and ankle joints, almost convinced the onlookers that the giant was imbued with life.

Louis Philip Perew - Inventor

   The carriage to which the automaton is attached resembles an electric delivery carriage.  The head of the figure is of sufficient size to permit the planting in the place where the brains are in a man, a complicated clock work, which when wound, causes the eye movement while the automaton is in motion. In its chest will be constructed a cell which will be placed an up-to-date phonograph, which will do the talking for the giant.  Attached directly in front of the carriage holding chains in his massive hands, the mechanical man can be driven at a rate of speed of fully four miles an hour.
  It is the intention of the company to hold a public banquet and  place the Automaton on exhibition.  Afterward it will be sent to New York City , where it will start on a trip across the country to San Francisco to test its walking power and gain for it a national reputation.  The company intends to build and sell the automatons for advertising purposes, and it is rumored that the Pan-American officials are looking into the advisability of using them for advertising the Exposition.
  The local automaton, according to well informed mechanical engineers, conforms with modern mechanical laws.  It's hip, knee and ankle motion is so perfect that a close inspection is necessary to prove that the automaton is not alive.  Aside from this Mr. Perew has invented a Merry-Go-Round, cigar lighters and a device for towing boats in the Erie Canal, the latter now being in the hands of some capitalists, who will at an early date will begin the construction of a mile of the device near Tonawanda.

Much credit is due J.A. Deschinger, who is assistant superintendent of construction, for the excellent workmanship of the automaton. He has labored night and day with the inventor to make the giant a success and it was due to the tenacity of Deschinger and Charles A. Thomas, vice president of the Company,that such obstacles have been overcome in it's construction as would have discouraged most other men long ago.

Col. Francis G. Ward Pumping Station

The Col. Francis G. Ward Pumping Station was completed & put into operation in 1915

The 1,100 Ton Holly Steam Pumps

Condensing Side of the Engines

   Buffalo's Hidden treasure are the Holly Steam Pumps at the Col. Francis G. Ward Pumping Station on Porter Ave. Built by the Holly Manufacturing Co., Buffalo N.Y. in 1914, they still exist today in their original configuration complete and intact. The five engines each stand 60 ft. tall and weigh in at 1100 tons apiece and capable of pumping up to 30,000,000 million gallons per day each. They were the largest engines ever built by the Holly Company. They operated, pumping Buffalo's water till about 1980.  The building itself is magnificent with it's large arched windows, tile walls, iron railings and street lights lining the balcony.
  The Industrial Heritage Committee, Inc. has sponsored public tours of the Pump House, and these incredible engines.    It was a rare opportunity to see this one of a kind array of steam engines. We talked about the history of Buffalo's water system, explained the steam engines and other interesting stories about the pump house, and answered any questions.  
  The pumping station's official address is 2 Porter Ave. Buffalo N.Y.  14201, for those  of you using a GPS. It is located at the foot of Porter Avenue, at the corner of D.A.R. Dr.   near the Peace Bridge. From the North take the 190 to exit 9 Porter Avenue, then turn right. From the south take 190 to exit 8 Niagara Street, turn left on Niagara then six blocks to Porter Ave., turn left and continue to Pumping Station. Now turn left onto D.A.R. Drive. Parking while available, will be at the Centennial Park Pool lot, then on the street. Entrance to the Pumping Station will be at the southeast corner of the building. 

View of  Engines not long after they were installed. Note the fancy street lights around the balcony.

BELOW, BASIC CONCEPT OF THE VERTICAL TRIPLE 
EXPANSION STEAM ENGINE

Video below: Kempton Triple Expansion Steam Engine U.K.

Largest in world still under steam. These are similar in type and size 

to the pumps at the Col. Ward Station.