File:Aqua Lane Park, Tonawanda, New York - 20210607 - 04 (Charles R. Huntley Generating Station).jpg

English: As seen in June 2021: a view looking northwest (downriver) along the Niagara River from Aqua Lane Park in Tonawanda, New York includes the former Charles R. Huntley Generating Station. Installed in 1916 by the Buffalo General Electric Company and at first known as the "River Station", this was a coal-fired power plant built to supplement the hydroelectric station at Niagara Falls during a time when electricity was rapidly becoming de rigueur for middle-class households, and demand for energy was skyrocketing at a pace that one can imagine was hard to keep up with. The three steam turbines it boasted at the outset, each capable of generating 20 megawatts of power, were fed by coal that arrived principally via the New York Central Railroad, from whose main tracks parallel to Military Road a branch extended here. There was also once a small lighthouse nearby that guided lake freighters loaded with coal to the plant. Renamed the Charles R. Huntley Station in 1926 after the recently deceased president of the Buffalo General Electric Company, the plant's capacity was expanded with a new turbine added in each of the years 1919, 1926, 1928, and 1930, eventually topping out at 760 megawatts of electricity. The plant continued in operation under a chain of successor companies, and in the middle 20th century the plume of coal smoke emanating from its stacks would regularly reach Williamsville some 10 miles to the east; despite continuing efforts to remedy the situation with installation of emission controls in the smokestacks, it was still the fifth-largest single source of air pollution in New York State as of 1999. Huntley was one of the last remaining coal-fired power plants in New York in 2005, when - due to low natural gas prices - its then-owner NRG Energy began a staggered shutdown of its generators, a process that ended when the last two were decommissioned in 2015. The property has been for sale since then.