There's always somebody doing something at Buffalo Lake. In fact, most families are doing several things all at once: dad fishing from the dock, mom weeding in the public flower garden while their teenager rolls around in the skateboard park and the youngest plays on the swing set.
When Buffalo city officials set out in the mid-1990s to develop the shoreline that skirts the southeastern edge of downtown, they decided to include something for everyone. Literally. The city polled the residents to ask what they wanted.
The result is an eclectic mixture that includes everything from a fountain to boat rentals, a boardwalk to a band shell, exercise stations to a basketball court and a picnic pavilion to a playground. There's also a spring that people use to fill water jugs, but Mother Nature gets credit for that.
Still, there's still a sense of waterside calm because the park is spread out over half a mile. There's room for the lunch crowd, freed for an hour from their desks, to sit on benches listening to lapping of the waves. Room for the teenagers who gather at the beach, the girls working on their tans while the guys stand thigh-deep in the water playing catch with a tennis ball. And along it all is the boardwalk, which stretches beyond the park, drawing retirees strolling hand in hand and young couples with preschoolers who dash ahead of their parents to get to the playground.
The sunsets draw a steady stream of photographers, and so many wedding parties gather at the lakefront for pictures that the regulars don't even give the elaborate entourages a second look.
The lakefront park even has admirers from afar. Debbie Ehlenz and her family have lived on the opposite side of the lake since before the park was added. "It used to be that at night, we'd look across the lake and only see the dark," she said. "Now we sit on our deck and see all the lights twinkling as they reflect in the water. It's pretty."
