Irving: Capital of the Seneca Nation

Irving sits at the mouth of Cattaraugus Creek where it meets Lake Erie, and it has been a crossroads for far longer than the hamlet's name suggests. The area is part of the Cattaraugus Reservation of the Seneca Nation of Indians, a Haudenosaunee people who have maintained a continuous presence here through the treaty era and into the present.

The Seneca Nation operates as a sovereign government, and Irving serves as one of its two alternating capitals. Every two years the seat of Seneca government rotates between Irving and Jimerson Town on the Allegany Reservation. Today the Seneca Nation manages its own government services, businesses, and cultural programs from this stretch of Lake Erie shoreline, making Irving one of the only places in New York where you are genuinely in the territory of a functioning Native nation.