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1905 Map of Depew

Name: 1905 Topographic Map of Depew
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1922
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1922

About this map

Depew and Lancaster serve as the industrial anchors for this region of Erie County, where a dense network of steel rails converged at the turn of the century. The map illustrates the dominance of the New York Central and Hudson River RR and the Lehigh Valley RR as they corridor through the landscape, supporting satellite settlements like Bowmansville, Looneyville Station, and Cheektowaga.

Southward, the terrain transitions from these busy rail corridors toward the meandering courses of Buffalo Creek and Cazenovia Creek. This area reveals a more rural character, preserved in early hamlets such as Blossom, New Ebenezer, and Elma. The proximity of the Pennsylvania RR and the Erie RR shows how even these smaller communities were deeply integrated into the regional transportation economy before the era of modern highways.