Buffalo Celebrates 194 Years Since Its City Incorporation

It's hard to believe that New York State's second-largest city just turned 194 years old, but today is the big day for Buffalo. It was on April 20, 1832, when the Town of Buffalo, which was once the village of Buffalo Creek, decided to incorporate as a city, and the City of Buffalo was born.

Even though Buffalo incorporated as a city in 1832, that is not when the story of Buffalo started, and in fact, it's been more than 230 years since the region was first settled. Captain William Johnston, Joseph Black Joe Hodge, and Cornelius Winney were the first non-Native American people to settle in the region back in 1789. Starting with very humble beginnings, Joseph Ellicott surveyed and laid out the original street grid on behalf of the Holland Land Company for what was first called the village of New Amsterdam. That name didn't last long as the area was renamed Buffalo Creek.

Thanks to the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, Buffalo Creek grew rapidly, which led the city leaders of the time to decide to incorporate the village into a city.

In the more than 200 years since Westerners have lived here, Buffalo has grown to a major medium-sized region and the second-largest city in New York State. Boasting a GDP of around $64 billion annually and routinely ranking as one of the hottest housing markets in America, Buffalo remains a place people should keep thier eye on, on both the business and sports front.

While things are not perfect in the City of Good Neighbors by any means, and we still have plenty of things to make better in Buffalo, where would you rather be than right here, right now?

Let's go, Buffalo, and Happy Birthday!