Buffalo Academy of the Sacred Heart’s most beloved statue of Jesus was first brought into the halls of SHA by Mother Paula in 1921. In 1922, the school began the tradition of the Solemn Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Students presented a program of prayer and spiritual readings and recited together the prayer of the Consecration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During the course of the decade, enrollment increased almost two-fold. With such growth, and increasing business growth on Washington Street, the Sisters took a risk by purchasing land in farm country outside the city in the belief that the city was expanding and Eggertsville would be a suitable place for the new high school. On March 19, 1929 they broke ground.
With the abundance of electrical power and access to the river, chemical companies such as Carborundum were established in Niagara Falls. The hydroelectric capacity of the Falls was tapped by the family of Jacob Schoelkopf, a leather tanner from Buffalo who had seen the future potential of the Falls and electricity. By the end of the decade, the Schoelkopf Corporation was combined into the Niagara Hudson Power Company which delivered electricity to all of New York State. In 1922, Bethlehem Steel, the steelmaking powerhouse of Pittsburgh, purchased Lackawanna Steel in the belief that Buffalo’s location within the Great Lakes could make it a critical linchpin in manufacturing and shipping. Also in 1922, Buffalo’s first radio station, WGR, began broadcasting. In 1924, the first Buffalo Athletic Club was erected on Delaware Avenue, and in the following years other area landmarks were constructed including Shea’s Buffalo Theater, the Riviera Theater, the Buffalo Museum of Science, and the Frank Lloyd Wright lake home, Graycliff. In August of 1927, the Peace Bridge was opened and connected Buffalo to Fort Erie, Canada. Before long, the new bridge was being used to smuggle liquor from Canada to New York during Prohibition.
To view any of these photographs more closely, click on Memories to the right.