He was the founder of modern-day United States military intelligence. A highly decorated hero in two world wars. A man renowned and revered for his integrity and leadership.

Wild Bill headed the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of today's Central Intelligence Agency, playing a crucial role in assuring that the United States would prevail over its deadly adversaries. He was appointed to the newly formed OSS by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the beginning of America's participation in the Second World War. A major general, Donovan was a highly decorated veteran of the First World War and served in important government posts at local and national levels in the years between the wars.

Rarely has Buffalo given the world a man as dynamic and colorful as Wild Bill Donovan. His exploits and deeds are the stuff of which legends are woven, yet he remains practically unknown in his hometown of Buffalo, New York.

To read more of Salvatore R. Martoche's story, see page 4 of the Winter 2003 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!

"I have said that the chief work of this fine artist was her magnificent series of paintings of the celebrated falls of Niagara and of the Canadian shore...She is the painter of water, have I said?...she is also that of skies calm or cloudy, and the greens of the woods or of the fields, and the ochres of the bare earth have for her no more secrets. Her studies are sparkling with spirit and there is no aspect of nature that she does not know how to render in a manner perfect and always personal."

- Count Chabrier, Revue du Vrai et du Beau, Paris, June 25, 1924

Born in Buffalo in 1867, she was the daughter of Henry J. Shuttleworth, a Buffalo banker, and Laura Wheeler. As a young woman, she attended St. Agnes School in Albany, New York, where she first became interested in music and considered composition as a career goal. It was there that she also began an informal interest in drawing and painting, but mostly as a pastime. With the onset of hearing loss in the 1880's, she realized that being a successful musician would not be possible.

To read the rest of David F. Martin's story, see page 25 in the Winter 2003 issue. Subscribe now!

The large mural painted by Thomas Hart Benton for the New York State Power Authority was commissioned by Robert Moses in 1958. The work was completed and installed in 1961 in "Power Vista," the Visitor Center of the great Niagara hydroelectric project. Benton spent a year and a half researching the subject and six months painting the mural.

...The epic story the mural tells is that of the Franciscan priest Father Louis Hennepin, confronting the awesome spectacle and power of the great natural wonder of the world, Niagara Falls. He was chaplain with an advance party of the famous La Salle exploration expedition. Although Father Hennepin may not have been the first European to view the Falls, he was the first to describe it and make it known to the world.

To read more of John H. Conlin's story, see page 32 of the Winter 2003 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!