A Community Built Around Lumber
Welcome to Tonawanda Gateway Harbor - where the Niagara River meets the Erie Canal. Prior to the 1800's this area was a wilderness frequently traversed by Seneca Indians from the Iroquois Confederacy. The first known white settlers were Henry Anguish, who opened a tavern along the Niagara River in 1808, and Robert Simpson, who established a small general store and smithy along Ellicott Creek around the same time. The Erie Canal opened in 1825 and ran directly through the village along Tonawanda Creek and then along the Niagara River to Buffalo. As a result a colorful variety of shops and saloons opened up to service the needs of the lake sailors, canal boatmen and their families as well as the existing settlers from New England and the arriving Germans, Prussian and Alsatian immigrants. With the advent of the lumber trade in the late 1840's Tonawanda, with its naturally deep and protected harbor, emerged as a major port where raw material from the west made its way eastward to help build a growing nation. Jack-Knife Bridge. This photo was taken looking east from the Delaware Street Bridge. The steel steam towboat and three steel barges at right were built initially as a wartime emergency fleet by the U.S. government. WWI was over before they appeared in the new Barge Canal, which, widened and deepened, replaced the old Erie Canal in the spring of 1918. Designed to fill a Barge Canal lock, the boats were put to good use hauling grain and other commodities eastward. The cantilever-type bridge in the background was built in 1919 by the N.Y. Central Railroad. At that time, New York State had plans to rebuild all bridges along the canal to allow passage of vessels with masts. The idea was dropped, however, because of projected huge costs. This bridge was raised only a few times for testing and has never been raised since.| HM Number | HM1NC4 |
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| Series | This marker is part of the Erie Canal series |
| Tags | |
| Placed By | New York State Canals |
| Marker Condition | No reports yet |
| Date Added | Friday, August 28th, 2015 at 9:02am PDT -07:00 |
| UTM (WGS84 Datum) | 17T E 673273 N 4765433 |
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| Decimal Degrees | 43.02183333, -78.87345000 |
| Degrees and Decimal Minutes | N 43° 1.31', W 78° 52.407' |
| Degrees, Minutes and Seconds | 43° 1' 18.6" N, 78° 52' 24.42" W |
| Driving Directions | Google Maps |
| Area Code(s) | 716 |
| Which side of the road? | Marker is on the right when traveling West |
| Closest Postal Address | At or near 55-91 E Niagara St, Tonawanda NY 14150, US |
| Alternative Maps | Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap |
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