From Abraham Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo is rich with Presidential history. On the Presidents' day holiday, YNN's Natalia Martinez reports there are hidden clues all over the city pointing to our nation's past.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — "We can tie eight American president to this space right here," local author and attorney, Kevin Gaughan told YNN.
The Statler was the home of President Millard Fillmore for more than 20 years and he is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery on Delaware Avenue. The Statler is also the place where Harry S. Truman played the piano until three in the morning.
"We have more Presidential history than, in any urban setting in America, outside of Washington and Philadelphia," Gaughan said proudly.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid a cornerstone at the State Office Building in 1936. Grover Cleveland was the Erie County Sheriff and Buffalo mayor. Abraham Lincoln came to church here in 1861. John F. Kennedy learned of the nuclear missiles in Cuba while in Buffalo.
"So many of us here in Western New York think that history is something that happens somewhere else but never here," Gaughan said.
The obelisk is a tribute to William McKinley, shot and killed in Buffalo in 1901 at the Pan American Exposition. His casket was displayed at County Hall.
Thousands of people lined up along Franklin Street to pay their respect to President McKinley. And it was actually President Roosevelt who spent hours shaking each one of those Western New Yorkers' hands.
Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in at the Wilcox House on Delaware.
"It was a very simple and short ceremony; Theodore Roosevelt became our 26th President," Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site Executive Director, Molly Quackenbush, said.
The clock in the library still reads 3:30.
Quackenbush said there were 40 people in the room during the inauguration. The President's back was to the window.