Buffalo, New York
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8correct to beat the crowd
This Buffalo trivia quiz has 105 free questions with answers and covers the whole city: the Erie Canal terminus that made it the world's largest grain port, the 1901 Pan-American Exposition where President McKinley was shot and Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in, two presidents who called it home, and the Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan landmarks that survived urban renewal. There is plenty of sports pain and glory too: four straight Super Bowls, The Comeback, Wide Right, the French Connection line and No Goal. And of course the food, from the Anchor Bar's first wings to beef on weck and sponge candy, plus the blizzards that give the city its reputation. The early questions are easy for anyone who has driven the 190; the later ones will test lifelong Western New Yorkers. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation, and every answer links to the source that confirms it.
30 of 105 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Jim Carrey comedy is set in Buffalo, where he plays a disgruntled local TV reporter?
Bruce Almighty
Bruce Almighty puts Carrey at Buffalo's real station WKBW-TV, yet the city seen on screen is mostly a Universal Studios backlot in California, with only brief shots of the real place.
Q 02Buffalo's annual Dyngus Day parade celebrates an Easter Monday tradition from which country?
Poland
Poland: Buffalo's Polish-American community built its Dyngus Day parties on an old custom of dousing people with water and swatting them with pussy willow branches.
Q 03The Buffalo Bills play their home games in which suburban town?
Orchard Park
Orchard Park has hosted the team since 1973, because the old War Memorial Stadium in the city held fewer than the 50,000 seats the merged NFL required; a new stadium opened there in 2026.
Q 04Buffalo wings are traditionally served with celery and which dressing?
Blue cheese
Blue cheese dressing and cut celery are said to have gone out with the very first plate of wings in 1964, and in Buffalo wings are still always served with both.
Q 05Which Buffalo bar is usually credited with inventing Buffalo wings in 1964?
The Anchor Bar
The Anchor Bar's Teressa Bellissimo is said to have deep-fried and sauced the wings in 1964 as a late-night snack for her son's friends, though her own family told the story more than one way.
Q 06The canal that reached Buffalo in 1825 linked the Great Lakes to which river?
Hudson River
The Hudson River: boats ran 363 miles from Buffalo to Albany and then on downriver to New York City, cutting the cost of shipping goods by about 90 percent.
Q 07Which U.S. president was shot at Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition in 1901?
William McKinley
William McKinley was shot at close range while greeting the public and seemed to be on the mend, but gangrene spread unseen around the wound and he died eight days later.
Q 08Buffalo's NHL team, founded in 1970, is known by what name?
Sabres
Sabres won a name-the-team contest: the owners wanted something other than another buffalo or bison, and it beat entries such as Mugwumps, Buzzing Bees and Flying Zeppelins.
Q 09At the 2020 census, where did Buffalo rank among New York State's most populous cities?
Second-largest
Second-largest: Buffalo trails only New York City, yet it has fewer than half the 580,000 people who lived there at its peak in 1950.
Q 10The Peace Bridge links Buffalo with which Canadian town?
Fort Erie, Ontario
Fort Erie, Ontario stands at the bridge's Canadian end, across the Niagara River; the Peace Bridge was built as a memorial to a century of peace between the two countries.
Q 11Which weather phenomenon is chiefly behind Buffalo's reputation for brutal winters?
Lake-effect snow
Lake-effect snow forms when cold air crosses the warmer, unfrozen lake and soaks up moisture; it falls in narrow bands, so one town can be buried while the sun shines a mile or two away.
Q 12Which sport do the Buffalo Bandits play?
Box lacrosse
Box lacrosse was developed in Canada in the 1930s to make use of hockey arenas left empty in summer, and it is still played on a rink with the ice removed or covered.
Q 13How many consecutive Super Bowls did the Buffalo Bills lose, starting with the 1990 season?
Four
Four: the Bills reached a record four Super Bowls in a row and lost them all, the first by a single point when a last-second field goal drifted wide.
Q 21Which anarchist shot the US president at Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition in 1901?
Leon Czolgosz
Leon Czolgosz joined the line of well-wishers with a revolver hidden under a handkerchief wrapped around his hand, and fired twice as the president reached out to greet him.
Q 22What was the centerpiece structure of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition?
Electric Tower
The Electric Tower was outlined in light bulbs run on power sent 25 miles from Niagara Falls; like the rest of the fair it was only temporary, and a public drive to buy and save it fell short.
Q 23Buffalo's Joseph Dart and engineer Robert Dunbar created which device in the early 1840s?
Grain elevator
Q 14Which alternative rock band from Buffalo had the 1998 hit "Iris"?
Goo Goo Dolls
Goo Goo Dolls wrote "Iris" for the film City of Angels; it led US radio play for a then-record 18 weeks, yet at first could not enter the Hot 100 because no single was on sale.
Q 15A beef on weck sandwich uses a roll topped with caraway seeds and what else?
Kosher salt
Kosher salt and caraway seeds crust the kummelweck roll; one local story says a pub owner served it because the salty top would make customers buy more drinks.
Q 16Which Buffalo firm, founded in 1875, grew from a soap factory into a mail-order conglomerate?
Larkin Company
The Larkin Company dropped its salesmen and middlemen, selling soap straight to households by mail and spending the savings on gift premiums; Frank Lloyd Wright designed its headquarters.
Q 17Which Frank Lloyd Wright estate in Buffalo's Parkside neighborhood is a Prairie-style landmark?
Darwin D. Martin House
The Darwin D. Martin House was abandoned in 1937 and stood empty for nearly two decades; three of the estate's structures were later torn down, and a restoration finished in 2019 rebuilt them.
Q 18Which president took the oath of office at Buffalo's Wilcox Mansion on September 14, 1901?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was on a hiking trip at Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks when a runner brought word that the president was dying; he rushed to Buffalo by relays of horses and then by train.
Q 19Which US president was a Buffalo lawyer and the first chancellor of its university?
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore helped found the school and stayed on as its chancellor until he died in 1874, keeping the title even while he was vice president and president.
Q 20Which president served as mayor of Buffalo in 1882?
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland spent his one year as mayor exposing graft and vetoing padded city contracts; it made his name so fast that he was elected governor that November and president two years later.
The grain elevator: Dart's steam-powered version scooped loose grain straight out of ships' holds, and within fifteen years Buffalo was the largest grain port in the world.
Q 24What was Buffalo's original name when Joseph Ellicott laid out the village?
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam: Joseph Ellicott's Dutch employers, the Holland Land Company, gave the village that name, but it never caught on with settlers and was dropped for Buffalo within ten years.
Q 25During which war did British forces burn most of Buffalo?
War of 1812
The War of 1812: British troops under Phineas Riall crossed the Niagara River at the end of 1813 and burned Buffalo and Black Rock in retaliation for the American burning of the Canadian village of Newark.
Q 26Which backup quarterback led the Bills' 32-point playoff rally over Houston in January 1993, known as The Comeback?
Frank Reich
Frank Reich, standing in for the injured Jim Kelly, threw a string of touchdown passes to turn a 35-3 deficit into a 41-38 overtime win; in college at Maryland he had led a rally from 31-0 down.
Q 27Which Bills kicker missed wide right at the end of Super Bowl XXV?
Scott Norwood
Scott Norwood had made only one of five career kicks from 40 yards or more on grass, and this 47-yarder on grass sailed wide with seconds left; the Giants won 20-19.
Q 28Buffalo's 1970s hockey line of Perreault, Martin and Robert was nicknamed after which movie?
The French Connection
The French Connection fitted twice over: all three forwards were French-Canadians from Quebec, and the Oscar-winning thriller of that name had come out in 1971, just before they were put together.
Q 29Whose triple-overtime goal, disputed as "No Goal" in Buffalo, ended the 1999 Stanley Cup Final?
Brett Hull
Brett Hull's skate was in the crease before the puck, which that season normally cancelled a goal; the league let it stand, saying he had kept possession of the puck throughout.
Q 30Which Buffalo-born funk star recorded "Super Freak", later sampled by MC Hammer?
Rick James
Rick James and his co-writer sued over the uncredited "Super Freak" riff in "U Can't Touch This" and won a songwriting credit, which then earned him the only Grammy of his career.