The home of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport

Cheektowaga, New York, lies immediately east of Buffalo, on Ellicott, Scajaquada, and Cayuga creeks, near Lake Erie. Originally part of the Holland Land Purchase and the town of Amherst, the site was first settled in 1808 by Appollos Hitchcock, who was appointed Indian agent for the Buffalo Reservation. The town, incorporated in 1839, derived its name from an Iroquoian word, ji-ik-do-wah-gah (“place of the crab apple tree”). There was some fleeting land speculation when the railroads came through after the American Civil War. Rapid residential, industrial, and commercial growth occurred after World War II. Cheektowaga includes most of the Village of Depew (incorporated 1892) and the Village of Sloan (1896).

Depew lies partly in Lancaster and partly in the town of Cheektowaga, but its history is so thoroughly identified with the territory under consideration that it may properly be treated wholly within this chapter. It was named in honor of Chauncey M. Depew, president of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company, to which it owes its existence. That great corporation decided upon this site as a permanent location for its shops and auxiliary establishments, and on May 17, 1892, ground was broken. This was the signal for a general real estate boom in the vicinity.