To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. BUFFALO & ERIE COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY The very first event held at The Aud was a political rally on October 15, 1940, the day after it was dedicated, for GOP presidential candidate Wendell Wilkie, who overfilled The Aud with a crowd of 25,000. A photo from the event was featured in Life Magazine. In true Buffalo fashion, the caption identified the location as St. Louis. Dressed up for the Inaugural Luncheon of The Aud was partially financed. The ceremony was broadcast over the Mutual Broadcasting System to 275 stations. While every other speaker was held to a minute, Ickes was allotted more time, despite the concern that the large listening audience would tempt the Republican to turn his message to partisan politics. Should that occur, Mutual threatened to pull the broadcast immediately and charge the f ledgling Board of Stadium and Auditorium, the entity charged with running The Aud, the cost of broadcasting a political speech. Ickes stuck to the script, however, getting in his digs only through double-entendres and well-disguised jabs. He also failed to mention that the first event booked for The Aud was a political rally for Republican presidential Candidate Wendell L. Willkie. And the event, which had its own timekeeper, ended just a few seconds before the designated hour of 3 o’clock. Just months after The Aud opened, the SecretaryManager of the Convention and Tourist Bureau, William T. Buckley, stated encouragingly, “The City of Buffalo, with its added facilities of the last few years such as the Stadium, the Kleinhans Music In the 1950s Bulova sponsored the installation and maintenance of this new scoreboard. BUFFALO STATE COLLEGE LIBRARY 6