Mission, Vision, Values          Funding/Accreditation         Pan-Am Building

Mission 

To maximize the educational potential for our community’s vast resources and abundant narratives through innovative programming, partnerships and collaborations; to share, preserve and add to our outstanding collections to tell the stories of Western New York, from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Vision    

• To be Western New York’s leading institution for heritage tourism.
• To be a nationally recognized resource for heritage.
• To be the recognized authority on Western New York history.
• To be the most popular destination for discovering our past.
• To be a leader in history education.
• To inspire our community to safeguard and preserve our historic treasures.
• To be sought out as a desirable place to work and volunteer.
• To enlist BECHS’ supporters as goodwill ambassadors for the museum and for Western New York.

• We recognize and promote the contribution that our history makes to contemporary life. 
• We celebrate the diverse contribution of all Western New Yorkers to the history of the area.
• We respect the viewpoints, beliefs, backgrounds, and experiences that everyone brings to the process of giving meaning to the past.
• We value openness, honesty, and integrity in our professional relationships and respect our colleagues’ unique perspectives, talents, and abilities.
• We value excellence and strive to meet the highest professional standards in everything we do.

Funding/Accreditation

The Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society (BECHS) is a private not-for-profit organization tax exempt under Sec. 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It receives operating support from the County of Erie, the City of Buffalo, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA, a state agency), and from members and friends. BECHS is accredited by the American Association of Museums.

The Pan-American Building (Historical Society's main building)

“The New York State building… is a credit to the great Empire State and will remain a conspicuous
landmark in the City of Buffalo long after the Electric Tower, the Esplanade and the Midway have
been leveled to the earth and forgotten.” Lockport Union-Sun, September 5, 1901

This building, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987, is the only permanent building erected for the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo’s international fair attended by 8,000,000 from May to November 1901. The Exposition is best known for being the largest showcase to that time of the uses of electrical illumination. It celebrated the technological innovations that had recently harnessed the generating power of nearby Niagara Falls. During the Exposition, the building served as the New York State Pavilion and was the scene of an intensive schedule of receptions welcoming distinguished guests from around the world.

Awarded the design commission by a State-sponsored competition, young Buffalo architect George Cary (1859-1945), who had been classically trained in Paris, designed the building, faced and corniced with Vermont marble, in Doric style. The beautiful south portico, overlooking Hoyt Lake in Delaware Park, is a scaled-down version of the east front of the Parthenon, in Athens. Cary was able to complete his original design in 1927 when the building was enlarged to accommodate the present-day Library and Auditorium. Eleven relief sculptures, designed by Edmund Amateis, surround the building, each depicting a significant event in local history. The bronze entry doors, designed by J. Woodley Gosling and sculpted by R. Hinton Perry, show allegorical figures depicting “History” and “Ethnology.”

After the Exposition closed, the building became the headquarters of the Buffalo Historical Society in 1902. The Society, founded in 1862, had previously displayed its growing collections in a series of rented spaces in downtown Buffalo. Since that time, the building has played many roles: exhibit pavilion, repository of the stories of Western New York, resource for genealogical and historical research by students and scholars, and community gathering place. Today the building hosts the Historical Society’s Research Library (collections include 20,000 books, 200,000 photographs and 2,000 manuscript collections), its Auditorium, long term exhibits BFLO Made! and Neighbors, galleries for temporary exhibits, and the Museum Shop.

To view the building as it was in 1901 and today, look here.