The Cheektowaga Isthmus

This is a local natural history posting that will later be moved to my Niagara natural history blog, http://www.markmeekniagara.blogspot.com/ . Most readers will not be familiar with this area.

Not long ago, I happened to be to the east and south of the city of Buffalo, NY, and I noticed some really interesting things. An isthmus is a feature of physical geography defined as a narrow strip of land between two bodies of water. Buffalo Airport is situated in the middle of what was once a narrow isthmus of land between Lake Tonawanda to the north, and Lake Warren to the south.

Here is a map link: http://www.maps.google.com/ .

Both of these lakes formed when the last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago, the glaciers melted, and there was far more water in the area than there is today. Neither lake exists any more. Lake Warren is drastically reduced in volume to form what we now call Lake Erie. All that remains of Lake Tonawanda, which I described extensively on the Niagara natural history blog, is the wide section of the Niagara River between North Tonawanda and the falls.

Lake Tonawanda extended northward well into Niagara County. It was basically a creation of the southward slope of the land from the Niagara Escarpment, and began draining when the falls cut through what is known as Hubbard's Point more than three thousand years ago.

On Transit Road and Union Road in Cheektowaga, a suburb just east of Buffalo where the airport is located, we can see that on these two north-south roads, the ground steadily gets lower as we go southward. There are two significant drops on both roads which seem to represent the former levels of Lake Warren, the larger predecessor of the present Lake Erie.

The former shore of this lake can be seen just south of Walden Avenue, at the intersection of Harlem Road, where the ground level drops as we go into the Thruway Plaza. This former shore can also be seen to the east, on Transit Road, between Terrace Blvd. and Broadway, in Lancaster. Cayuga Creek formed later, after the lake had receded. It should also be readily visible on any other north-south roads in this line. Southwestern Blvd., in Orchard Park, gets steadily lower in elevation as we go southwest, and this represents the floor of the former Lake Warren.

The drop in the level of Transit Road continues going southward until we get to Buffalo Creek. You can easily see by the valley sorrounding the creek and the Clinton Street intersection that it was once a mighty, albeit temporary, river draining a vast amount of water from the melting glaciers into the former Lake Warren.

There is another rise in elevation to the north of the former shore of Lake Warren, close to the airport. This can also be seen on both Transit and Union Roads. On Transit Road, it is visible between Rehm Road and Lee Street just south of Tops Market. On Union Road, it can be seen between Maryvale and Clearvale Drives. My belief is that the former Lake Warren probably reached this elevation, but not for a really long period of time. As the tremendous volume of water diminished somewhat, the lake withdrew to the former shoreline described above.

To the north of what we could call "The Cheektowaga Isthmus", the shoreline of the former Lake Tonawanda can be seen in many places along main roads. On Transit Road, going southward, the level of the ground suddenly gets higher around the intersection with Sheridan Drive. On Harlem Road, at Main Street in Williamsville, the former shoreline is easily seen. In Tonawanda, it can be seen on some north-south streets north of the I-290 highway, particularly Delaware.

One interesting thing that I have never seen pointed out is that Lake Erie is an elongated lake with a well-defined central axis that can easily be seen on a map. If we follow that axis to the Buffalo end of the lake, and continue the line of the axis beyond the shore, it brings us to the broad valley seen on South Park Avenue, with the bottom of the valley at the intersection with Mile Strip Road.