The time for discussing the practicability of bringing electric power from Niagara Falls to Buffalo has gone by. Electrical science has settled the question completely. It has been demonstrated beyond all question that electric power can be transmitted long distances without material loss.
A number of the greatest capitalists, and shrewdest investors in the United States, are financially interested in the tunnel scheme. Before they put up their money they satisfied themselves not only that the power could be produced, but that it could be sold.
They looked at Buffalo, 22 miles away, and saw a city of nearly 300,000 inhabitants, spread over a large territory, with ample opportunity for territorial growth beyond the present limits, a city in which 3,000 new houses were built in the year 1891, and in which nearly one hundred million dollars is invested in industrial enterprises. They saw a city into which 26 lines of railroad enter, representing a total trackage of about 25,000 miles, and including the great trunk lines leading east, west, north and south, tapping all the rich raw-material storehouses of the continent at all points. They saw that Buffalo had extraordinary facilities for the distribution of manufactures by rail, facilities created by the hand of industry, and they saw too nature’s grand gift in the great chain of lakes, coupled to another gift of industry, the Erie canal, giving us a water route to the Atlantic seaboard.
These men saw that here was the place where electric power could be disposed of in enormous quantities. They knew that they could send it here almost as cheaply as they could distribute it in the immediate vicinity of its point of production, and they saw the mighty certainties in a combination of unlimited cheap power for manufacturing and extraordinary shipping facilities. They knew that a market for their electrical product was forever assured, and they planted their millions in the earth and rock of Niagara. Better investment was never made.
Read the names of some of the great financiers engaged in this enterprise: William K. Vanderbilt, Chauncey M. Depew, Drexel, Morgan & Co., August Belmont, Brown Bros. & Co., Isaac N. Seligman, Winslow, Lamer & Co., Morris K. Jessup and others famous in the financial world.
OUR GREAT RAILROAD INTERESTS.
Buffalo is one of the greatest railroad centers in the United States. Its advantages for bringing in raw material cheaply and quickly are unequalled. Its railroad arteries go forth in all directions, reaching the rich mines and fertile fields and levying upon the wealth of all; and for the distribution of manufactured products it occupies a commanding position unexcelled by any city in the country. And to all this must be added its peerless shipping facilities by lake and canal, coupled with the fact of its unique location at the point of transhipment between lake, canal and railroad.
The railroad interests of Buffalo are larger than many residents of the city have any idea of. There are more miles of railroad tracks within the city limits than in any other city in the world. We have 660 miles of them. The railroads own over 3,600 acres of land in the city. Over one-tenth of the general city taxes levied in Buffalo is paid by the railroads. An army of over 20,000 men are steadily employed by the railroads in Buffalo. A great number of them own their own homes. With their families they are numerous enough to make a good-sized city of themselves.
New industries are constantly being added to swell the bulk of railroad enterprises here. The locomotive shops of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad are among the latest. They will cost half a million dollars to build, and they will be equipped with the highest class of machinery, costing several hundred thousand dollars more. It is the intention within a few years to spend about two million dollars on these shops, making them the largest and best equipped locomotive shops in the United States, rivaling the Altoona shops, now the largest in the world.
The building of the Gould Car Coupler Company’s works adds another to the long list of railroad supply shops located here, among which are the Wagner Palace Car Works, Buffalo Car Wheel Works, New York Car Wheel Works, Rood & Brown Car Wheel Works, all employing a large number of men. These are the kind of industries that anchor a city to prosperity forever.