Most people wouldn’t be surprised to find out that a man named William Scott built a log cabin near the corner of Delaware Avenue and Amherst Street in 1816. It might be a bit more shocking to find out that the frontier home was still standing when that corner was being cleared to build the Pan-American Exposition in 1901.
When it was demolished, it was one of the two or three oldest homes in Buffalo – and probably the best example of a log cabin that was still standing in the city at that point.
“It would have been better to move (the log cabin) onto the grounds as an exhibit than to tear it down,” wrote the Buffalo Express in 1901.
Today the home of two gas stations, a convenience store and a used car lot – before the Pan-Am, Delaware and Amherst was rural farm land. During the exposition, it was the site of one of the grand entrances to the grounds, with a clear view of the Electric Tower a block away.
People are also reading…
By the spring of 1902, the Pan-Am grounds were dismantled, and the land was being parceled for the current development of city streets between Elmwood and Delaware.