Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2017

Cheektowaga: Place of the Crab-apple Tree

I’m not sure how many crab-apple trees Cheektowaga really has, but our name derives from the Erie-Seneca Indian word, "ji-ik-do-wah-gah", meaning “place of the crab-apple tree”. Before our factories and restaurants were established, Cheektowaga was home to the Six Nations of Native Americans. It's hard to believe, but the Walden Galleria Mall that we’ve grown to rely on was once a hunting and gathering ground for the people before us. Appollos Hitchcock Before the business boom, we were a small township where Appollos Hitchcock, our first settler, decided to start his home near what is now Borden and Broadway. Where we buy a slice of pizza and get our hair done, Hitchcock was traveling via oxcart with his family to build a log cabin. Cheektowaga was soon his home, and his efforts helped us develop into the town we are today. Buffalo International Airport 1930 By the civil war, log cabins turned to railroads and hunting grounds turned to mills. And, by 19