Buffalo Maritime Center facts for kids
The Buffalo Maritime Center is a special place in Buffalo, NY where you can learn all about boats and the history of shipping. It's like a maritime museum combined with a workshop! Here, people build and fix old wooden boats. You can see historic ships, learn about how boats traveled on the Great Lakes and New York canals, and even watch new boats being built by hand. They also have a workshop called a foundry that makes metal parts for these historic ships.
History of the Center
The Buffalo Maritime Center started in 1989. It was created by Dr. John Montague, a professor from Buffalo State College. He loved boats and wanted to share that passion with others.
In 2007, Dr. Montague retired. He then turned his popular boat-building classes into a non-profit group called the Buffalo Maritime Center. They moved to a new spot downtown. Over time, the center grew a lot! It added a foundry to make old-style boat parts, a library for research, and a museum. The museum now has many old boats, ship models, paintings, and other items. These items tell the story of shipping on the Great Lakes and canals in the region.
For many years, the center was in different old factories in Buffalo. Now, it has a new main home! It's part of the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park. This new spot is right on the Buffalo waterfront, in a large building called a longshed.
Exciting Projects
The Buffalo Maritime Center has many cool projects, mostly done by volunteers!
One big project is building replica canal boats. These are exact copies of old boats. Some of these boats are now used at the Flight of Five Locks in Lockport, New York. Imagine riding on a boat built just like one from hundreds of years ago!
In 2019, the Center received money to build a very special boat. This boat will be a copy of the "packet boat" that Governor Dewitt Clinton rode. He used this boat when he officially opened the Erie Canal way back in 1825. This new, historically accurate wooden boat will be 73 feet long and 10 feet wide. Volunteers at the Center will build it by hand! This project is very important because it will be ready around 2025. That year marks the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal, often called the "Big Ditch."
The Center has also made a special mold. This mold helps museum members build their own historically accurate wooden canoes. It's a great way for people to learn traditional boat-building skills.
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