Buffalo Niagra International Airport

Power last year; just one rating point away from topping all other airports. From the beginning, the Airport was considered indispensable to the City of Buffalo’s industrial and commercial growth but, clearly, growth was on the horizon for both. In 1925, two hundred acres of Cheektowaga farmland were purchased for the new airfield and construction, while today’s Buffalo Airport covers nearly 1,000 acres. “We had the first postal flight into the airport back in the twenties,” reveals Vanecek. “We also had a base out of the World War II era - the Curtiss-Wright Manufacturing facility for aircrafts. It provided a lot of the planes that were used in the war.” As airmail service and passenger travel proved more popular, the Airport saw more activity. “We found commercial service working its way into the Airport and flourishing in the early ‘60s and ‘70s,” Vanecek says. “We had what were, at the time, all the main airline carriers. If you went down through the whole list, just about anybody who was a player in the game was flying into and out of Buffalo.”