The Buffalo River drains a 447 square mile watershed, emptying into the eastern end of Lake Erie at the City of Buffalo. The river has three tributaries: Cayuga Creek, Buffalo Creek, and Cazenovia Creek. The Buffalo River has been important to the development of western New York, including as the terminus for the Erie Canal beginning in 1825, and later as an industrial area with uses including grain elevators, steel mills and chemical production. When shipping began to bypass the Erie Canal in the 1950s, and later with the decline of heavy industry in the region, the transportation and industrial use of the river greatly declined and many adjacent factories and grain mills were abandoned.