Lackawanna, city, Erie county, western New York, U.S., on Lake Erie, adjoining Buffalo (north). Originally part of an Indian reservation, it was settled in the 1850s as part of West Seneca and was known as Limestone Hill. It was primarily a nursery and truck-farm area until 1899, when it was chosen as the site of the Lackawanna Steel Company (later acquired by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation). The steel-production facilities there, once among the largest in the United States, were extensively reduced in 1977 and largely closed in the early 1980s; in the late 1990s a bar mill was still in operation. The city’s economy is based on services. Inc. city, 1909. Pop. (2000) 19,064; (2010) 18,141.