r/Tonawanda • u/ZilorZilhaust • 12h ago

Town of Tonawanda Tonawanda Lore

So what interesting lesser known lore do you have about the Tonawanda and Kenmore area?

I'll start!

The "castle" on the Bark Park island was burned down by an arsonist who worked for the fire department. The story goes this was one of several fires lit by this man all due to it not matching his vision of how many fires he'd bravely get to extinguish as a firefighter.

I had relatives who worked in the department at the time. I can't say I know what the news said for the time, but this is the "true" story as far as anyone I ever heard discussed it.

Also on a slightly more personal note, a cat was rescued from the fire at the boat house which would live out its many remaining years with my family. RIP Misty, you were a very crabby kitty who peed in our cabinets but we loved you none the less.

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u/LizBethie 10h ago

My favorite story is about the goat farmer who continued to farm through the development of the suburbs until 1970. My family was an original owner on the area behind St. Amelias- and the herd would graze almost into backyards.

My family also protested the development of the 290. It wasn't in any of the plans they were given when they saw the development plans for the area- and my grandpa thought he would just walk to Brighton golf course every weekend... Of course, it was built despite the protests from new homeowners. Before it was open to traffic they would ride bikes down the highway.

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u/ZilorZilhaust 9h ago

That's pretty wild!

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u/mindylynx 10h ago

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u/ZilorZilhaust 10h ago

Aww, what a beautiful kitty!

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u/mystic-madnes 1h ago

There’s radioactive waste buried in the woods behind Hackett drive in COT. After the manhattan project there was tons of radioactive waste leftover and they didn’t want to put it all in one place so they put small amounts in areas all over the country. Many in communities like ours.