Town of Cheektowaga

Cheektowaga is a town in Erie County, New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 88,226.[3] The town is in the north-central part of the county. It is the second largest suburb of Buffalo, after the town of Amherst. The town of Cheektowaga contains the village of Sloan and half of the village of Depew. The remainder, outside the villages, is a census-designated place also named Cheektowaga. The town is home to the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, Erie County's principal airport. Villa Maria College, Empire State College, and the Walden Galleria are in Cheektowaga. Cheektowaga's earliest known dwellers were the Neutral People, and after came the Seneca people of the Iroquois Confederacy, who named the location Chictawauga, meaning "land of the crabapples"​ in the Seneca language. Cheektowaga was formed from the town of Amherst on March 22, 1839, and upon the formation of West Seneca on October 16, 1851, was reduced to its present limits—about 30 square miles (78 km2). Throughout the 19th century, it was referred to by its original name, "Chictawauga"​. Originally a rural farming area, the town was extensively developed during the post-World War II subdivision boom of the 1950s. Factories such as the Westinghouse Electric Corporation plant on Genesee Street (since demolished) generated employment to the area for many decades. The town maintains a strong blue-collar presence. Cheektowaga has a large Polish-American community, much of which relocated from Buffalo's East Side, and about 39.9% of population is of Polish heritage. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 29.5 square miles (76.4 km2), of which 29.4 square miles (76.2 km2) is land and 0.1 square miles (0.2 km2), or 0.21%, is water.