Salamanca

Salamanca, a village in Cattaraugus county, New York, U.S.A., in the township of Salamanca, about 52 m. S. by E. of Buffalo. Pop. (1900), 4251, of whom 789 were foreignborn; (1910, census), 5792. Salamanca is served by the Erie, the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg and the Pennsylvania railways, and by interurban electric lines connecting with Olean, N. Y., Bradford, Pennsylvania, and Little Valley (pop. in 1905, 1225), the county-seat, about 8 m. N. The village is built on both sides of the Allegany river. The agricultural and industrial development of the region has been retarded by its being within the Allegany Indian Reservation (allotted originally to the Seneca Indians by the Big Tree Treaty of 1798 and still including the valley of the Allegany river for several miles above and below Salamanca); but land is now held under a 99 year lease authorized by Congress in 1892. The village is a railway centre and division terminal, and has repair shops of the Erie and the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg railways. The first settlement in the district (which was included within the "Holland Purchase" of 1792-1793) was made in 1815 near the site of West Salamanca (pop. in 1905, 55 8), 12 m. W. of Salamanca, and in the same township. Salamanca (until 1873 known as East Salamanca) was incorporated in 1879, taking its name from the township, which was erected in 1854 as Buck Tooth Township and in 1862 was renamed in honour of a Spanish banker who was a large stockholder of the Atlantic && Great Western railway, built through the township this year, and later merged with the Erie railway.

See History of Cattaraugus County, New York (Philadelphia, Pa., 1879).