International Fair Association Grounds was a fairgrounds and later a short-lived baseball and football ground located in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. The ballpark, built on a portion of the former fairgrounds, was home to the

Buffalo Buffeds/Blues The Buffalo Blues were a professional baseball club that played in the short-lived Federal League, which was a minor league in 1913 and a full-fledged outlaw major league the next two years. It was the last major league baseball team to be bas ...

of the

Federal League The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season as a minor league in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the e ...

in 1914 and 1915. The fairgrounds property was originally a large block bounded by Northland Avenue (north); Humboldt Parkway (east); Ferry Street (south); Dupont Street, and Jefferson Avenue (west). The grounds included a horserace track and grandstand, and a bicycle track within the horserace track. The grounds were a few blocks northwest of the

Buffalo Baseball Park Olympic Park is the name shared by two former baseball grounds located in Buffalo, New York, United States. Prelude From 1878 through 1883, Buffalo's baseball teams had played at an initially unnamed ballpark at Fargo Avenue and Rhode Island ...

. By the 1910s, the property had been sold to residential developers, and streets were being cut through to form the neighborhood that would become known as Hamlin Park. The Buffeds sought property for a ballpark in 1914 and found a northwest corner of the property available. The team broke ground on March 23, 1914 with Mayor Louis P. Fuhrmann in attendance and constructed a concrete ballpark called Federal League Park in the spring of 1914. The stands and diamond overlapped part of the site of the northwest corner of the racetrack and its grandstand. The ballpark itself was located on a block bound by Northland Avenue (north, third base); Lonsdale Road (an extension of Hauf Street) (west, first base); Hamlin Road (an extension of Balcom Street) (south, right field); Oriole (now Donaldson Road) T'ing-into the property from the east, and Wohlers Avenue (east, left field). In addition to baseball, the grounds hosted the 1914

New York Pro Football League The New York Pro Football League (NYPFL) was a professional American football league, active in the 1910s, and based in upstate New York, primarily Western New York. Between 1920 and 1921, the league's best teams were absorbed into the National Foo ...

championship, won by the Lancaster Malleables. The area is now fully residential buildings. A short street just to the east of the area, which existed when the fairgrounds was there, is a silent reminder: Inter Park Avenue.

References

*Marc Okkonen, ''The Federal League of 1914-1915'',

Society for American Baseball Research The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is a membership organization dedicated to fostering the research and dissemination of the history and record of baseball primarily through the use of statistics. Established in Cooperstown, New ...

, 1989

External links

History of the grounds
Defunct baseball venues in the United States Defunct college football venues Buffalo Bulls football Federal League venues Sports venues in Buffalo, New York American football venues in New York (state) Baseball venues in New York (state) Defunct sports venues in New York (state) {{BuffaloNY-struct-stub