The French visited the sites of Buffalo and nearby Niagara Falls in 1678. Niagara received more attention because of its military value, but the establishment of Buffalo was assured with the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, which made it possible to ship goods and materials to New York City.
Buffalo is one of the coldest and snowiest areas in the northeast. Some parts of this area receive an average of 204 inches of snow a year, compared to an average snowfall of 24 inches a year in New York City.
Near Buffalo is the Love Canal area, which was a chemical dump in the 1940s and 1950s. Homes were built over the landfill, and a few years later residents noticed a significantly higher level of birth defects. A total of 717 families had to be relocated from the Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls in 1978 because of seeping toxic wasted from a former Hooker Chemical Company dump. The government has spent a quarter of a billion dollars cleaning up and resettling the area. In early 1989 more contamination was found in a church parking lot, half a mile from the original dump site. Three quarters of the Love Canal neighborhood is now safe to live in. The rest of the area may never be safe.