International Fair Association Grounds
International Fair Association Grounds was a fairgrounds and later a short-lived baseball and football ground located in Buffalo, New York. The ballpark, built on a portion of the former fairgrounds, was home to the Buffalo Buffeds/Blues of the Federal League 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.
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. When the Buffeds went looking for a home in 1914, part of the northwest corner of the property was still available, and a ballpark called Federal League Park was built there in the spring of 1914, its stands and diamond overlapping 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 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, 1989