Erie County History & Bicentennial Celebration on This Week’s State of Greater Western New York Report – June 24, 2021

Are you ready for this? The history of Erie County is older than Erie County itself! We all know the then village of Buffalo was burned by the British and their Indian allies in the War of 1812, but at the time, Buffalo was part of Niagara County. It wasn’t until 1821 that Erie County was created. Do you know what that means? This year is Erie County’s 200th birthday! Let’s celebrate!

Melissa Brown, Executive Director for the Buffalo History Museum, returns for her second appearance on The State of Greater Western New York Report and she is joined by Erie County Historian Douglas Kohler. Together, they discuss the amazing history of Erie County from the War of 1812 to the opening of the Canal all the way through to the Pan-Am Exposition and Women’s Suffrage. In the second have of the show, the two historians layout the festivities for this year’s Bicentennial Celebration, including the new beer that was brewed for it and the exciting “passport” program that includes events in each town.

Both guests happily answered questions from the live audience. Would you like to be a member of our live audience so you can ask our guests questions? Click here to join the growing number of members who share your feelings on StateOf.GreaterWesternNewYork.com because then we can automatically send you the link to watch our shows live.

Theme music by mansardian courtesy of FreeSound.org under Creative Commons License Attribution 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/