Frontier is Truly Great

But Wait Till the Tidewater Line Terminates in North Tonawanda.

THAT’LL BE GOING SOME

Second “Seeing” Trip Surprises Many With the New Industries Erected at Buffalo, Tonawanda and Falls.

Seven big yellow car loads of hustling business men and capitalists, who took half a day off to see how Buffalo and the rest of the Niagara Frontier is growing these days, went to Niagara Falls Saturday, keeping their eyes wide open all the way down and back and while they were there. Like the man from Missouri, each and every one of them wanted to be “shown.” They wanted to see some evidences of the greatness of Greater Buffalo that has been talked about. Most of them came back convinced that when Nicola Tesla said, “Buffalo is sure to become one of the greatest industrial centers on the globe,” the noted philosopher and inventive genius spoke by the book.

It was the Chamber of Commerce’s second seeing Buffalo expedition. There isn’t anything small about the ideas of the chamber, so seeing Buffalo Saturday included the Tonawandas, Niagara Falls and that part of Canada which is opposite Niagara Falls and is the busiest part of the Dominion this side of Toronto. As close an estimate of the number on the excursion as could be made without counting tickets, was 350; all men who mean something in the city’s life, some millionaires and some very much the reverse, but inclined that way, if get-up-and-go will make their fortunes.

The trolleys started from Lafayette Square about 12:30 o’clock, going down Main street to Niagara and out Niagara on the regular Niagara Falls route. On each car were a couple of “spielers,” equipped with megaphones and a stock of information about factories along the car line that they pumped into the excursionists as the cars sped along. The “spielers” were John H. Baker, Charles C. Grein, George W. Mitchell, F. Howard Mason, Francis Bowman, Fenton M. Parke, W. E. Otto, James E. Shaw, Edward Horgan, R. C. O’Keefe, W. J. J. Kunzie and J. W. White.

Many New Factories.

Inside the city line the “spielers” were kept pretty busy. There were factories large and small singly and in dozens. Especially noticeable was the activity in the building line at Black Rock. Several new plants were going up there, the largest being that of the Buffalo Brass & Copper Rolling Works, which is nearly completed on the Military Road. In the Tonawandas and Niagara Falls, also, several new factory buildings, half up, were observed.

At Niagara Falls, N. Y., the cars stopped at the plant of the Niagara Falls Power Company and everybody went through the great power houses where is generated the electricity that runs the street cars, illuminates the streets and turns many factory wheels in Buffalo. After inspecting the main floor of the power houses, where 105,000 horse-power is developed when all the generators are running, the men on the excursion descended in an elevator to the lower level of the plant, 135 feet underground. Here in a deafening roar of revolving shafts could be seen the penstocks which supply water to the turbines that turn the shafts. The shafts, directly connected, turn the electric generators on the main floor 135 feet above. Through cracks in the floor the escaping water that had done its work and was bound through a long tunnel into an outlet below the falls could be seen.

It took an hour for all to go through this power house. Then the cars were boarded again and the party went to the Canadian side of the river and in similar manner inspected the Ontario Power Company’s plant there.

The return to Buffalo was made immediately thereafter, the cars arriving in town between 6 and 7 o’clock.

There were many expressions of approval of the Chamber of Commerce’s action in planning and carrying out this excursion and the previous one around the Belt line. Although a majority of those who were on the excursion had been to Niagara Falls before by the same route, few of them had paid much attention to the factories passed on the way and to the development of the territory between Buffalo and the cataract. It is the general idea that outings of this sort incite an enthusiasm in local affairs that Buffalo needs.