History and Mission

Our Heritage, Your Village

 

Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village (BNHV), is a history museum and educational institution in Amherst, New York. Our mission is to preserve, interpret, and exhibit the agricultural history and rural heritage of the Buffalo Niagara region.

 

Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village is located on a 35-acre campus and our Historic Village contains ten historic buildings built during the 19th century. These buildings were moved to our campus when they were threatened with demolition during the Town’s rapid growth and development. A dedicated, on-going program of preservation and conservation has resulted in these buildings being restored to their 19th century appearance, so that visitors may experience what life was like in the Buffalo Niagara Region during an earlier era. Our indoor museum features rotating exhibits, the Niederlander Research Library, and a collection of 40,000+ artifacts.

 

In 2011, BNHV became an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.

 

In 2020, BNHV dedicated its mission to highlighting the rich agricultural and rural heritage of the Western New York region through a synergy of educational and interpretive initiatives throughout our Historic Village, farmstead, exhibits, and collections. BNHV believes in energetic, hands-on, all-senses immersion. A primary interpretive sub-focus under our new mission is maker culture: the who, what, why, and how of the things that people make in agricultural and rural spaces.

 

BNHV carries out its educational mission through exhibits, programs, group tours, classes, artisan workshops, community outreach activities, and community access to a variety of artifacts and historic resources retained in our Collections and Research Library.

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