Shuffle Off to Buffalo (Texas)

Tomorrow Granpa and I are going to shuffle off to Buffalo (Texas) to meet our Hawaiian friends for lunch.  Buffalo is kinda in Central Texas in Leon County and was established in 1872 on the International Great Railroad Line.  The city was named for the herds of buffalo (American Bison) that once roamed the area.  By 1892 the town had a population of about 500, and during the 1890's just about every business and church that a Texas community could wish to have had been established in Buffalo.

Not much has happened in Buffalo, Texas except for a plane crash in 1959 that killed a couple of dozen folks, and the city changing it's name to "Blue Star," Texas for a short while in 1993 and again in 1994 when the Dallas Cowboys went up against the Buffalo Bills in those two Super Bowl years.  (The Cowboys' logo is a blue star.)  Then the Dallas Stars went up against the Buffalo Sabers during the Stanley Cup in 1999, and the city changed its name again to "Green Star," Texas for a bit.  The Bills and the Sabers are both based in Buffalo, New York.

Oh, yeah, Buffalo, Texas is also home to "Slayer" bassist/vocalist Tom Araya.


There is also a place in Texas named Buffalo City that was established by John H. Reagan - but that's in Henderson County in east Texas.

Now, why, might you ask, were towns in such far-away-from-each-other-places as New York and Texas both named for buffalo?  That's pretty easy to answer:  before the Europeans came the American Bison roamed nearly the entire North American continent from Canada to Mexico and from the Rockies to the Appalachians.  They roamed in many distinct herds, but roam they did - by the millions.  The only reason the Europeans slaughtered them is because the Native Americans quite literally couldn't live without them.  To control the Indians the white man thought they had to destroy their food source.  The Indians, indeed, couldn't adapt and were conquered.  'Tis a bummer, too, because bison meat is higher in protein and lower in fat content that a cow. 

But Buffalo, Texas is a pretty good half-way point between our Hawaiian friends new home in central Texas and our home in east Texas.  So it's off to Buffalo we go!