#buffalo river

when heat wraps around my lungs in a damp hug, I know summer has arrived again.

Three frighter stuck in the ice- choked Buffalo River 1959 in: Sea History 175 - Summer 2021 

High winds at Buffalo tore the frighter Mac Gilvray Shiras loose when a heavy current swept the Buffalo River. The wayward vessel struck the fighter Michael K. Tewsbury and the Merton E. Farr and eventually demolished the Michigan Ave. Bridge. The damaged Shiras was not repaired and arrived in Hamilton in June 1959 for scrapping.

The Buffalo River in winter is normally a quiet place. Back in the day, Great Lakes freighters as long as two football fields would lay up for the winter here, awaiting the resumption of Great Lakes shipping come spring thaw. On the evening of 21 January 1959, however, freighter mayhem literally broke loose.

About 9:00 p.m. an ice jam on Cazenovia Creek broke loose and poured inexorably into the Buffalo River. Like a tsunami, it slammed into the MacGilvray Shiras, a freighter owned by The Kinsman Marine Transit Company.

The Shiras was moored for the winter at the Continental Grain elevators at the foot of Smith Street. The force exerted by the ice jam caused a "deadman" to which she was moored to pull out of the ground, and the Shiras careened downriver, stern first, like a gargantuan pinball. Driven by a gale-force wind, at 11:00 p.m. she collided with the Michael K. Tewksbury, moored at the Standard elevators near the foot of St. Clair Street. The Tewksbury was unmanned, her shopkeeper ashore watching television with his girlfriend and her family. The force of the collision caused the Tewksbury to break from her mooring, and both behemoths rolled on down the river. The Michigan Avenue bridge crew, near an 11:00 shift change, was not there to receive the initial call from the Buffalo Fire Department to lift the bridge. They were reportedly finishing out their shift in The Swannie House at the corner of Michigan and Ohio, the second oldest tavern in Buffalo, and still serving today. With the freighters closing in, efforts to lift the bridge were too late. The freighters struck and wedged at 11:17 p.m. The bridge was destroyed. The two freighters, wedged against the ruined bridge in a channel 177 feet ( c. 54m) wide. They dammed the Buffalo River, causing the mother of all ice jams. The ensuing deluge inundated the Old First Ward, and the flooding extended three miles upstream. Amazingly, there were no casualties.

Boating on the Buffalo River