Buffalo Made

The First Buffalo Chicken Wings

By now, everyone who has ever nibbled on chicken wings prepared in a particular style knows their origin story: in 1964, at the Anchor Bar, Teressa Bellissimo cut some wings in half, deep fried them, tossed them in hot sauce, and served them at the bar with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing. A star was born. Today, Buffalo is not just a city, it is a flavor applied to just about anything: snack foods, cauliflower, shrimp, pasta salad, mac & cheese, hamburgers, stuffed mushrooms, and even pizza.

The Buffalo affection for chicken wings is not limited to the Bellissimo version, however. The first appearance of chicken wings in the Buffalo telephone book was courtesy of John M. Young (1935-1988).  Young, an African-American entrepreneur, opened a restaurant in 1966 called “Wings & Things” at 1313 Jefferson Avenue. His wings were uncut, breaded, deep-fried, and served with his secret, tomato-based Mambo Sauce. They were sold ten for a dollar.  We are indebted to Steve Cichon for first reporting the telephone book entry.

We can look even further back than the 1960s for evidence of chicken wings on the plates of Buffalonians. On August 16, 1894, the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser published this less-than-appetizing recipe for chicken wings:

The_Buffalo_Commercial_Thu__Aug_16__1894_

We have no way of knowing if any 19th century Buffalo households had a copy of The Modern Cook by Charles E. Francatelli (11th edition, 1858), but in it we found this wing recipe, which also sounds fairly unpleasant:

Francatelli

We can, however, show that Buffalo’s chicken wing pedigree began at least 160 years ago. In our menu collection is a Bill of Fare dated July 1, 1857, from the Clarendon Hotel at Main & South Division:

clarendonhotel1857

The wine list was longer than the food list. However, in small print, under Entrees, one finds not only the delightful Macaroni baked, with Cheese, but this offering: Chicken Wings, fried. Buffalo comes by its association with chicken wings honestly.

ClarendonHotel

The Clarendon Hotel, shown above in an illustration from Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo, p. 157, was built in 1849 as the Phelps House. Under the new management of Captain Henry Van Allen, it was renamed the Clarendon in 1853 and described as a “first class, well kept” hotel. That year, the Buffalo Daily Republic reported, with a cryptic reference to earlier labor difficulties:

At the Clarendon Hotel, girls have been introduced as waiters, with good success. They get from $6 to $8 per month. No other of our principal Hotels has yet tried them. The proprietors think that the employment of girls will alone exempt the Hotels from a repetition of the annoyance already experienced.

Daily Republic, May 3, 1853

Also in 1853 was this episode of bravery concerning an omnibus, a horse-drawn passenger vehicle:

An omnibus, standing at the Clarendon this morning, while the driver was attending to some baggage, started off, and proceeded down Main Street at full speed. When nearly opposite Swan Street a colored man named Jackson started out and caught the lines and stopped the team, amid the applause of several by-standers. 

Daily Republic, Sept. 3, 1853

The Clarendon Hotel served the traveling public and boarders until Nov. 10, 1860, when it was destroyed by fire. At least four guests and two chambermaids lost their lives. Today it is the site of Fireman’s Park, between 1 M&T Plaza and the Ellicott Square building. We hereby credit the Clarendon Hotel as the first known establishment in Buffalo to hire waitresses and to serve chicken wings.

Cynthia Van Ness, MLS
Director of Library and Archives

•This article was featured in the 2017 Summer issue of The Album.  To learn more about Buffalo-area food & restaurant items in the Library’s collection, see this list maintained by Library staff.

On This Day: January 24, 1935
bannercan_front

Can of Banner Extra Dry Premium Beer, brewed, canned and packed by George F. Stein Brewery Inc., Buffalo, NY

On this day (OTD) in 1935, the first can of beer was sold in Richmond, Virginia by the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company; 91% of the consumers approved of the canned beer and as they say, the rest is history.  Historically, Buffalo has always been an alcoholic-beverage-loving city – just take a look at the Google maps Buffalo Drinking Map from 1828 to present day that Amy Miller, from our Library, created.   We have numerous beer bottles in our Collection that were used by many of the local brewers throughout Buffalo’s history, but in celebration of the ‘beer can’ theme today, we scanned through our database, Past Perfect, to see what we could find.

Donated in 2011 by Mr. Phillip DiFrancisco, this can of Banner Extra Dry Premium Beer was brewed, canned and packed by George F. Stein Brewery Inc..  The owner of the brewery, Mr. George F. Stein, was born in Germany in 1865, learning how to brew in Bavarian breweries until 1885, when we moved to Buffalo, N.Y. as an employee at the Lang brewery.  He would go on to work for the International brewery and the Clinton Star brewery before starting the Germania Brewing Company (located at Broadway and Bailey avenue) from 1892-1909 with his father-in-law, Conrad Hammer.

bannercan_backFrom 1909 until 1918, Stein operated Stein’s Ale Brewery in Medina but returned to Buffalo as the brewmaster of the Binz brewery at 797-807 Broadway Ave.  In 1920, Prohibition closed all breweries but Stein purchased the Broadway Ave. building in 1928 and began manufacturing liquid malt, concentrated malt and syrups to sell to bakeries as the Broadway Blending Company.  When beer was legalized in 1933, Stein began to brew beer again at the George F. Stein Brewery Inc. until his death in 1938.

After 25 years of successful business, the George F. Stein Brewery Inc. was purchased by the Leisy Brewing Company (Cleveland, OH) and closed shortly thereafter.

Spotlight Artifact: Huffy Puffy 999

huffypuffytraintoy

The Fisher-Price Company was founded in 1930 when Herm Fisher began working with Irving Price and Helen Schelle to create toys that “appeal to the imagination, that do something new and surprising and funny.” With their headquarters in East Aurora, NY, Fisher-Price sent their first shipment of toys to Macy’s in New York City in 1931. Fisher-Price was acquired by the Quaker Oats company in 1969 and ultimately purchased by Mattel in 1993. It is now the largest preschool products company in the world and is known for the high quality and durability of its products.

In 1999, the Museum received a large donation of Fisher-Price toys from Mary Brandwein. She established the collection because she found the architecture of the buildings pleasing and Mary collected the pieces with the intention of forming a village with an airport, school, zoo, main street, service station, post office, and so on. The pull toy featured here, from Mrs. Brandwein’s collection, is a wooden train from 1963, labelled “Huffy Puffy 999”. The train has a red plastic face, red wood wheels, a white antennae attached by a spring, and an engine and caboose. The two parts are connected with a metal and plastic hooking system that can uncouple to add more cars to the train.

Rebecca Justinger
Registrar

*This article was featured in the Spring 2016 issue of “The Album.”

The Apostolic Clock and its many Mysteries

What has an Apostles train that parades every 30 minutes, shows the moon phases, the location of the sun in the sky, and tells you the day and month all at once? Our Apostolic Clock!
clock-face

(If you aren’t familiar with the clock, you can read more about it here and here)

If you are familiar with any of our social media platforms (Instagram, twitter, Facebook), you would have seen that the Apostolic Clock has taken up residence in the entryway of the museum and has resumed enchanting guests with its parade of Apostles.  However, you might not have known about some of its mysteries!

Did you know that…

  • The clock has three different parts that have to be wound at different times? The Apostles parade every 30 minutes so they wind down the fastest; they have to be re-wound every 2 days – if they aren’t, they become stuck 1/3 of the way on parade!
  • Originally, the Apostles paraded on the hour, but it was altered to parade every 30 minutes at the request of museum staff. Marv DeBoy who worked on the clock with Mr. Albert Bull from 1974 onwards, made the modifications.
  • Today, the Apostles come out of a set of doors that opens inward. The doors used to be glued together and opened outward as a single door.
  • All of the Apostles are hand carved and painted wooden figures. While very similar, they differ slightly in the position of their hands, the clothing arrangement and colour and hairstyle.
  • At the top of the clock, there are mysterious metal fixtures that seem to have no purpose. Fred Robjent and Chris Tahk, our wonderful volunteers who have helped maintain the clock for years, have not yet found a purpose for them! Do you know what they are for?
  • There is a hole on the left side that may or may not have been for a light switch. What the light may have illuminated is a still a mystery.
    detailed-clock-face

    • The face of the clock has two larger dials that have painted tin plates of scenery (one even has a castle!) that move independently of each other to mimic moon phases and the movement of the sun.

     

    • The moon dial completes a single revolution ever 91 days and is propelled by a lead weight (which is unusual in design and construction[1])

     

    • The dial with the sun completes a revolution every 24 hours (for 24 hours in a day). What is very interesting though is that the tin plate is mounted on vertical guides – these move the horizon up and down to reflect the winter solstice (at the highest point) and the summer solstice (at the lowest point)!

     

    • The 8-inch terrestrial globe at the bottom of the clock rotates once every 24 hours and is very fragile! It has been conserved at the State University College at Buffalo Art Conservation Department twice: once in 2002 and then in 2008.  In 2008, wooden dowels were attached inside to help give the globe more structure.  Below are some great ‘After Treatment’ images from its last visit to the Art Conservation Department.

    globe-views

    Now that you know a little more about our clock, you should come for a visit and see how many of these you can spot!  Have you seen any other mysteries about the clock? We’d love to hear any answers or theories – even more mysteries!

Britt Call,
THE GREG D. TRANTER COLLECTION MANAGER

 

[1] P41. HAGANS, Orville R. “The Myles Hughes Apostolic Clock.” Watch & Clock Review 50.8 (August 1983): 40-43.