History

Erik Brady: Long before he was an NFL legend, Don Shula was beating Buffalo's best

Seventy-five years ago today, Don Shula was a halfback on the John Carroll University football team that beat Canisius College, 14-13, in the Great Lakes Bowl.

Erik Brady: The last time Canisius beat Syracuse, Craig Prosser had a major role. In 'The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh,' not so much

Once upon a time, Canisius versus Syracuse was a real rivalry in men’s college basketball. It isn’t like that anymore.

Erik Brady: Book outlines hidden gems in Western New York and author's lifetime of loving his hometown

“This book is the culmination of a lifelong interest in my hometown,” Brian Hayden says. “It combines my interests in writing and journalism and history and travel and tourism.”

Two unexpected artifacts in the Buffalo History Museum collection

Walter Mayer, Buffalo History Museum's senior director of collections is retiring this Friday after more than 30 years at the museum. He shares two of the more unusual artifacts among the thousands he has been in charge of managing for the last three decades.

Erik Brady: The Quad is like the Ryder Cup, with less talent but more friendship

At Dunkirk’s Shorewood Country Club, golfers from the U.S. and Canada will compete in the 100th birthday of the International Quadrangular golf match, better known as the Quad.

[BN] Chronicles: Hills for back-to-school shopping in 1983

Hills' 1983 back-to-school selections might not have been as cool as some of the clothes or shoes you might have been able to buy at the mall, but at least there was the hope of a bag of popcorn and maybe an Icee.

Sean Kirst: 'Keep up the fight': In WNY, living witnesses of MLK, John Lewis and great march

At that moment 60 years ago in Washington, D.C., for so many weary or scarred from the long struggle, denominations did not matter: With that speech, Buffalo's Clifford Bell said, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "reinforced our faith.”

[BN] Chronicles: Did Buffalo’s love of Loganberry start with a Canadian lawmaker’s plot?

One of the quintessential tastes of Buffalo, a recent “Buffalo Niagara Guide to Regional Pride” described Loganberry as a “sweet, deep purple, and non-carbonated fruit drink made from loganberry juice.” But what caused it to appear on the scene in Buffalo and Crystal Beach?

[BN] Chronicles: Buffalo's illegal beaches of the 1930s

The summer of 1939 was a hot one in Buffalo, which meant people were figuring out almost any way to cool off. By the hundreds, unofficial and unpatrolled beaches were filled with bathers making their ways into the cool waters of Lake Erie.

How will Amherst move a history museum – and its 19th century buildings – to the future Central Park site? Very carefully

Decades after they were carefully hauled to the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village site in northeast Amherst, the historic structures are now part of the museum’s planned move to the former Westwood Country Club along Sheridan Drive.

Heritage Village move

[BN] Chronicles: When Buffalo made its own smoky pollution, 1946

With a “thick black pall” hanging over Buffalo, Mayor Bernard Dowd lead the charge for the creation of tougher anti-smoke laws and a smoke-abatement bureau “under the supervision of a college-educated engineer” during the particularly smoky summer of 1946.

Stolen in Buffalo, Theodore Roosevelt's watch is recovered 36 years later

In July 1987, a thief stole Theodore Roosevelt's watch from an unlocked, glass-enclosed case at the Wilcox Mansion on Delaware Avenue. For 36 years, its whereabouts have been unknown. That is, until now.

Erik Brady: In 1903, Baseball's Big Ed Delahanty plunged to his death in the Niagara. The circumstances are still a mystery

Big Ed Delahanty is the only man ever to win batting championships in both the National and American leagues.

Alan Pergament: Why the implausible TV dominance of Irv, Rick and Tom never will be repeated

Weinstein may have captured the trio’s success best when they were inducted into the Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame in 1998. “I think Rick, Tom and I worked because people felt we were approachable, we were regular guys," he said.

[BN] Chronicles: Gay in Buffalo, 1981: 'It’s hard being gay anyplace, but it's especially hard in Buffalo'

When “an eclectic group of about 500” gathered on the Buffalo History Museum’s lawn in June 1991 – it was Buffalo’s first-ever outdoor demonstration of gay pride. Organizers called the event a “coming out” for the city’s entire lesbian and gay community.

[BN] Chronicles: The log cabin at Delaware and Amherst, 1900

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 …

Erik Brady: King Charles will make history, but he won't top Roger Bannister

Bannister’s laurel crown means more than any royal one.

[BN] Chronicles: Cat-Eye Annie, Buffalo’s most notorious woman felon and prison breaker

She was described as “fabled and sinister” and “the most fabulous and cunning woman criminal in the annals of the Buffalo Police Department.”

[BN] Chronicles: The gun control debate in Buffalo, 1972

“The debate over gun control is one of the most urgent and vital in America.”

He's 102. He lives in Amherst. And he just won the 'Nobel Prize' of statistics

"This is probably the only award he hasn't received yet," C.R. Rao's son, Veera Rao, told The Buffalo News.

[BN] Chronicles: County Executive Ned Regan at the Broadway Market, 1975

For as long as there’s been a Broadway Market, there have been office-seekers showing up at 999 Broadway to woo voters.

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[BN] Chronicles: Remembering Beef & Sirloin’s 'carnival atmosphere'

Back then, you were as likely to say “across from the Westinghouse plant” as you were to say “across from the airport” on Genesee Street. But most people really didn’t need directions to Beef & Sirloin, the old-school roadside stand that was as much carnival as it was restaurant.

[BN] Chronicles: For a fish fry, Richie Roth's was 'like no other'

You can get a fish fry almost anywhere – but people will travel from all over for a good one, even heading to a neighborhood or tavern they might not think to visit otherwise. It’s been that way for at least a century.

13 Williamsville properties make up new water mill historic district, but not everybody is happy

A monthslong debate, as is often the case in Williamsville, centered on the tension between encouraging investment in the village without sacrificing its historic identity.

Towering, century-old presence on Kenmore skyline to come down this spring

A notable part of the village skyline since it was erected in 1927, the tower's tank was drained and disconnected in the 1970s.

Erik Brady: This is not the first time Bills fans pelted opposing players with snowballs. Just ask Chuck Foreman

Joe DeLamielleure watched the Buffalo Bills beat the Miami Dolphins on TV on Saturday night, and then again, on repeat, on Sunday morning. Each time, as he saw fans tossing snowballs, he flashed back to the most infamous Snowball Game in Bills history.