Little Known Facts About Buffalo – Did You Know?

These days we hear a lot of people taking shots at Buffalo because of our weather, our economy, our politicians... Well we decided to take a look back at what has come out of Buffalo that has dramatically changed peoples lives and have an impact on how we live even today.

That the modern shoe was invented in Buffalo?

It’s true, shoe manufacturer John Blocher in the late 1800’s made several improvement to the shoes of the time. These upgrades included putting an arch in shoes so you could differentiate between the right and left shoe and putting a tongue in shoes. So next time you are complaining about how much your shoes hurt just stop and think of how bad they would hurt without this Buffalo natives help.

buffaloah.com/h/blocher

The first day care in America was started in Buffalo?

Maria M Love, daughter of a wealthy Buffalo society family first started the Fitche Creche at 159 Swan Street in 1879 after seeing the Crèche system on a trip to France. The Crèche was the first day care system in the US and it allowed children to spend the day getting food and medical care if needed. The Crèche was started to help working mothers to take care of their children and the cost was 5 cents per day and became a model for other day cares throughout the US during the 19th and 20th century. However like so many historic Buffalo buildings the Fitche Crèche was demolished in the 1990’s to expand a parking lot.

Buffalo was the first city in America to have electric streetlights?

Due in large part to Buffalo’s key location to Niagara Falls in 1886 Buffalo was the first city in the US to illuminate its streets with electric street lights earning Buffalo the nickname City of Light.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York

The original manuscript to Huck Finn is in the Buffalo Public Library?

While Mark Twain was living in Buffalo and the editor of the Buffalo Express Newspaper he donated his original copy of his acclaimed novel Huck Finn to the Buffalo Library where it still resided today.

Over 200 movies have been shot in Buffalo?

While its true that over 200 films have been filmed or partially filmed in Buffalo most of these films were shot between 1896 and 1904. However some notable modern films were filmed on location in Buffalo including The Natural, Bruce Almighty, and Tuck Everlasting you can head over to IMDB.com for a full list of movies filmed in Buffalo over the years.

imdb.com

(Contributing author: Liz DiNArdo)