No announcement has yet been observed of the millionaires who constitute the South Fork Fishing Club doing anything remarkable toward bearing the expense of caring for the sufferers and clearing away the debris at Johnstown. In fact, the delay made the destruction even worse, because the dammed up water got back much of the energy it had lost in its initial flow. Clara Barton, Founder, American Red Cross. But one of the greatest challenges was identifying the bodies that were recovered. FILE - In this 1889 file photograph, people stand atop houses among ruins after disastrous flooding in Johnstown, Pa. Facts, figures and anecdotes about the Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania, which killed 2,209 people 125 years ago, gave the Red Cross its first international response effort and helped set a precedent for American liability law. And asTribLIVEreports, the flood did $17 million in damage, which would be over $480 millionin today's dollars. Andrew Carnegie was a member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, the group . 10 This break resulted in a minor flood in Johnstown, where water only rose about two feet and did not cause much damage. As a result, those pipes became clogged with debris. This debris caught against the viaduct, forming an ersatz dam that held the water back temporarily. Wasn't there an old book on the Flood? The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club wanted to build the lake up to its original height, so they could go boating and fishing. The Johnstown Flood (locally, the Great Flood of 1889) occurred on Friday, May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam, located on the south fork of the Little Conemaugh River, 14 miles (23 km) upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States. Behind the numbers and stats, and even the human tragedy, there is an evil lurking here. Whose idea was the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club? What is the fishing club doing? The Western Reservoir (later renamed Lake Conemaugh) had been constructed not for recreation, but instead to provide water for the section of the Pennsylvania Canal between Johnstown and Pittsburgh. They made various attempts to shore up the dam in the midst of a howling storm all of which failed. The result, as reported byThe Seattle Times, was around 750 bodies that were never identified. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. A 30-foot (9-metre) wall of water smashed into Johnstown at 4:07 pm, killing 2,209 people. was unimaginable. Law, Anwei. after the event. In the first edition following the disaster, the Tribunes editor George Swank placed blame for the disaster clearly on the Club: We think we know what struck us, and it was not the work of Providence. Survivors clung There are stories of homes floating past with people trapped on the roofs, screaming for help. (AP Photo/Johnstown Flood Museum). read more, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres is narrowly defeated in national elections by Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Few of them would be considered reliable histories, although all of them are fascinating, and copies of almost all of them survive to this day. Eastern Acorn Press, 1984. Difficult to find. Remarkably, the Pennsylvania Railroad was able to build a temporary bridge at the site just two weeks after the flood, and a new stone viaduct was built a year later. In 1879, they made repairs and improvements to the dam to bring up the water level. She was met by Knox and Reed, and the jury was overwhelmingly comprised of railroad and steel workers whose jobs and livelihoods would be threatened if the industrialists were found guilty (Coleman 2019). The Clubs great wealth rather than the dams engineering came to be condemned. Frick was wounded in the neck and two stories exist about what happened next: 1.) . The outrage over that legal outcome actually changed the law, however. Winter opening hours have begun for the Johnstown Flood Museum and Heritage Discovery Center/Johnstown Childrens Museum: we are CLOSED Tuesdays and Wednesdays; OPEN Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays from 10:00 am-5:00 pm; and OPEN Sundays from noon-5:00 pm. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Although the Flood of 1889 was by far the worst, Johnstown had not seen the last of its floods. However, no club member ever expressed a sense of personal responsibility for the disaster. The Johnstown Flood Museum is located in downtown Johnstown inside the city's former Carnegie Library. The destruction of Johnstown was incredible, but many smaller communities in the surrounding area suffered incredibly as well. Although the 1977 flood was brutal within a seven-county disaster area, the JLFPP flood control efforts kept the flood level about 11 feet lower than it would have been without it. (AP Photo) (The Associated Press), This photo from May 31, 1889, released by the Johnstown Flood Museum shows the destruction along Main Street in Johnstown, Pa., following the collapse of the South Fork Dam that killed 2,209 people. In 1879 he ended up selling the land to the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club at a loss. Very little maintenance was performed on the dam during its existence, even though it broke once already in 1862 (this break caused very little damage, as the reservoir was only half full). aired in first . Like many other towns in the Rust Belt, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a bustling community in the late 1800s and early 1900s when the steel industry was at its height. who weren't killed instantly, were swept down the valley to their deaths. It crashed into the barrier and went hurtling back toward Johnstown like a boomerang. According to the Johnstown Area Historical Association, the wall of water that slammed into the town at somewhere between 40 and 90 miles per hour was 35 to 40 feet in height on average and water lines were found as high as 89 feet, which is almost the distance from home plate to first base in a baseball game. Upon his election in 1980, Reagan read more, May 31, 1819 is the birthday of poet Walt Whitman, born in West Hills, Long Island, and raised in Brooklyn. New York: Random House, 1993. The Story of Johnstown. Johnstown is 60 miles east of Pittsburgh in a valley near the Allegheny, Little Conemaugh and Stony Creek Rivers. (AP Photo/File), In this historical photo from May 31, 1889, survivors stand by homes destroyed when the South Fork Dam collapsed in Johnstown, Pa. As officials prepare to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the enormous Johnstown Flood of 1889 that killed 2,209 people, new research has helped explain why the deluge was so deadly. When the dam burst, sending 20 million gallons of deadly water hurtling toward Johnstown, this resignation doomed them. The Tribune-Democratreportsthat many people believe this spared communities downriver from Johnstown from a similarly horrifying fate. The Philadelphia Inquirer stated, While the work of digging out the remains of the dead and clearing away the ruins is going on in the valley below, members of the club are having photos of their ruined pleasure resort taken. The South Fork Fishing Club shut down shortly after the event, largely due to negative publicity. 286 other terms for what happened - words and phrases with similar meaning. No further evidence beyond a few other unreliable testimonies corroborated the supposition that Reilly gave the instructions to remove the pipes. Attempting to prove that a particular owner acted negligently was often futile and the members designed the financial structure of the club so that their personal assets were separate from it (PA Inquirer, June 27, 1889). The dam was about 15 miles upstream from Johnstown, Pa., a steel mill town of more than 10,000 people. but now many of Johnstown's streets were under 2 - 7 feet of water. anymore. As anyone who has ever experienced a flood knows, water flows in unexpected ways, and there were no satellites, Internet, or airplanes in 1889. Until the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, it was the United States' largest loss of civilian life in a single day. Doctors, nurses and Clara Barton and the American Red Cross arrived to provide medical assistance and emergency shelter and supplies. The club had very few assets aside from the clubhouse, but a few lawsuits were brought against the club anyway. It appears that the club was the idea of Benjamin F. Ruff, a tunnel contractor and sometime-real estate salesman from the Pittsburgh area. . After the flood, the public was eager to determine exactly what caused the dam to fail. The viaduct was completely destroyed in the disaster. About 80 people actually burned to death. 19 Despite a large number of court cases filed against the South Fork Fishing Club, no individuals were able to recover damages from the dams owners. AsTribLIVE.comnotes, when the dam's failure became certain, attempts were made to warn the towns in the floodway via telegram. The public was bitter that these wealthy businessmen took so little action and seemed unconcerned by the tragedy. Most Internet records concentrate on the aftermath and don't give. (Click here for a complete list of club members). But as Owlcation notes, by3:00 PM, the water still hadn't subsided, and the residents of Johnstown were becoming annoyed but they were used to floods. After Johnstown was destroyed, it was found that 1,600 homes had been destroyed, 2, 209 people lost their lives, and there was over $17,000,000 in property damage. This natural disaster caused many families and homes to come crashing down, all the townspeople shed tears that day as they watched their homes and loved ones float away with the . The Historic Flood of May 31, 1889 First let's look at circumstantial evidence on the 1889 flood (2,209 killed, $17m damage). The South Fork Fishing Club comprised primarily of wealthy industrialists, including Andrew Carnegie, Henry Frick, and Andrew Mellon (Coleman 2019). Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a thriving community with a strong economy based on the coal and steel industries. The public was bitter that these wealthy businessmen took so little action and seemed unconcerned by the tragedy. We can use some tools like a city directory that was recompiled after the Flood and some other Flood related documents, but definite family histories, unless somehow preserved by the families themselves, are hard to determine. Johnstown: Benshoff, 1964, 1993. Then the pile, which was 40 feet high and 30 acres across, caught fire! Work began in August 1938 with extensive dredging and flood control measures. These victims were buried in a mass grave called the Plot of the Unknown at Grandview Cemetery. It took five years to rebuild Johnstown, which again endured deadly floods in 1936 and 1977. However, Pitcairns position meant that he had a commercial interest in defending the club. Were the people below the dam warned? after last. Gertrude Quinn Slattery, 6, floated through the wreckage on a roof, and when it came close to the shore a man tossed her through the air to others on land, who caught her. In simple terms, many saw the Club members as robber barons who had gotten away with murder. Though 80 lives were lost in the 1977 flood, it was far less than it would have been if the waters had risen another 11 feet. Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Market data provided by Factset. And they argued successfully that the flood was an act of God, and thus, they couldn't be held responsible. Find this quaint town amidst the Allegheny region and head straight to the Johnstown Flood Museum to get on first-name terms with this former steel town. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. Books were for sale literally within days of the disaster. It took them seven months to finish the report and they did not publish it until 1891. It had already failed once in 1862. Part of the bridge collapsed, but most of the structure held, again forming a makeshift dam. The "Johnstown Flood" was a chaotic result for a small middle class family, natural disasters happen so much in one's lifetime and can be emotionally crippling. Wasn't Clara Barton involved somehow? It flattened a railroad bridge. YA, Walker, James. Barton had worked in relief efforts during the Civil War, and she was eager to demonstrate to the world that the Red Cross had a role to play in peacetime as well. The most powerful case against Reilly was provided by Robert Pitcairn, the executive of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. One comment published in the Philadelphia Inquirer captures the publics attitude towards the club members. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1987. In our visitor center, we show a National Park Service-produced film, nicknamed "Black Friday," that tries to recreate the Flood. And you'd be right. The umpires were done with their day's work after Baltimore's Josh Lester grounded out to end the top of the ninth inning with the Orioles trailing 7-4, officially ending the . Our park, Johnstown Flood National Memorial, preserves the ruins of the South Fork Dam, part of the old lakebed, and some of the buildings of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Daily weather map for 8 am May 30, 1889, the day before the big flood in Johnstown. Several of the club members, including Carnegie and Frick, supported the relief and rebuilding efforts with large donations. Earlier in the night, Schmid allegedly had said to his friends, I want to kill a girl! He was such a nice guy. How could future flood disasters be avoided? They donated the bare minimum to preserve their reputations, but they cared little for the people whom they harmed in the first place. The Johnstown Flood is considered the first major civilian disaster relief effort for the American Red Cross, which was less than ten years old in 1889. Who built the dam? That when Berkman's next shot did not go off, the wounded Frick and Leishman went after Berkman. AsABC Newsnotes,the litigation chiefly took place in Pittsburgh courts, where the owners of the club had tremendous influence. If they'd fled for high ground, many of the 2,209 who died in the flood might have survived. Train service in and out of Johnstown stopped. Many had been grievously damaged in the incredible violence of the flood, making it all but impossible to tell who was who in this time before forensic science had been developed. 1JOHNSTOWN, Pa. The house will be rocking at this year's AmeriServ Flood City Music Festival. The public wanted the club members to face the same type of destruction that they did. Workers toiled for the most part of the day, first trying to raise the height of the dam, then digging spillways and removing screens that kept fish in the lake from escaping. to roofs, debris, and the few buildings that remained standing. Nine hundred feet by 72 feet, it was the largest earth dam (made of dirt and rock, rather than steel and concrete) in the United States and it created the largest man-made lake of the time, Lake Conemaugh. New books come out almost yearly about the disaster. Legal action against individual club members was difficult if not impossible, as it would have been necessary to prove personal negligence and the power and influence of the club members is hard to overestimate. Weren't there other floods in Johnstown? Littles case was dismissed almost immediately. Ironically, the resort was built for the industrial giants to flee from the pollution that their companies were responsible for in the city. This flood. Below the bridge the floodwaters reached the first floor, but it did not have the force of all that debris trapped in the jam. "What I suffered, with the bodies of my seven children floating around me in the gloom, can never be told," she later recalled. However, their vast influence over Americas judicial system allowed club members to escape any liability. 99 entire families were wiped out, 396 of them, children. The Johnstown Flood would become one of the worst natural disasters ever seen in this country. On the day of the flood, the dam's operators knew they were in trouble early on. Clara Barton and five workers arrived in Johnstown on June 5, less than a week after the flood. Values of Johnstown Flood related items have varied greatly in this age of internet auction sites. The Cambria Iron Works was completely destroyed. Johnstown Flood. However, people usually only turned to lawsuits as a last resort, since it was nearly impossible to win against the industry titans. When people think of floods, they sometimes think of slow-rising water and groups of people desperately piling up sandbags to hold back the tide. However, the legal ambiguity allowed the club to argue that Reilly was to blame. 733 Lake Road In fact, asABC Newsreports, it's suspected that some of the modifications the club made to the dam contributed to its failure. The temporary dam collapsed, and the water resumed its rush down the floodway. Approximately 57 minutes after the dam collapsed, the water had traveled almost 15 miles, obliterating most of downtown Johnstown. Imagine the Mississippi River smashing into your living room, and you'll have some idea of the destructive force that hit the town of 30,000. As reported by the Delaware County Daily Times, bodies were eventually found as far away as Cincinnati, Ohio, (which is 367 miles away) and as late as 1911, more than two decades after the event. On the day of the storm, the water was already rising in Mineral Point, and most of the people had already fled to higher ground when the dam failed. The majority of the public attributed the disaster to the South Fork Fishing Club. FILE - In this 1889 file photograph, people stand atop houses among ruins after disastrous flooding in Johnstown, Pa. Facts, figures and anecdotes about the Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania, which killed 2,209 people 125 years ago, gave the Red Cross its first international response effort and helped set a precedent for American liability law. Work began on the dam in 1838. The library represented the shallowness of the club members actions. 700 of the victims could not be identified. 20 million tons of water rushed down the narrow Conemaugh Valley like Until the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, it was the United States' largest loss of civilian life in a single day. Beach Haven, NJ: The Attic, 1972. In Harrisburg, the . From 1985 until 1988, a sequel series titled What's Happening Now!! The South Fork Dam, located 22 km (14 miles) upstream of the town . Doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1940. Lists. It contained a lake that was over two miles long, a mile wide and 60 feet deep. The tragedy of the Johnstown Flood of 1889 resulted from a combination of nature and human indifference and neglect. He wrote, What is the fishing club doing? American author and historian David McCullough's first book, The Johnstown Flood (1968), tells the story of a flood that devastated a steel community in Central Pennsylvania in 1889. The club owned the Western Reservoir, the dam that created it, and about 160 acres of land in the area. With his father, Eastwood wandered the read more, On May 31, 2005, W. Mark Felts family ends 30 years of speculation, identifying Felt, the former FBI assistant director, as Deep Throat, the secret source who helped unravel the Watergate scandal. The railroad lost two cases based on the loss of property. Something inflammable must have been carried along in the debris, because it soon burst into flame, engulfing the bridge in fire. The fear of big floods remains. Pennsylvania Railroad Company. The terrible stories from the Johnstown Flood of 1889 are still part of lore because of the gruesome nature of many of the deaths and the key role it played in the rise of the American Red Cross. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the club contributed 1,000 blankets to the relief effort. Pittsburgh, unpublished dissertation, 1940. That means that if the Johnstown Flood happened today, the lawsuits against the South Fork Hunting & Fishing Club would probably be successful. The flood was the first major natural disaster in which the American Red Cross played a major role. About 4 square miles of downtown Johnstown were destroyed. Shappee, Nathan D. A History of Johnstown and the Great Flood of 1889: A Study of Disaster and Rehabilitation. At the end of the day, per History, 2,209 people were killed, many swept away by the sheer force of the water and that includes 99 entire families and nearly 400 children. According toHistory, when the water finally reached Johnstown, it was going 40 miles per hour and as authorDavid McCulloughnotes, it may have been going much faster than that if the incline is taken into account. The public had grown weary of corruption during the Gilded Age (see Gilded Age Political Cartoon Analysis), so their distrust was understandable. The newest chapter on the Johnstown flood, written not by historians but geologists, fixes blame for the disaster squarely on a sports club owned by some of Pittsburgh's industrial . By the time it reached Johnstown the flood didn't even look like water This made it one of the largest reservoirs in the country at the time. As it is, for the people of Johnstown and the surrounding area, May 31, 1889, remains a memory of loss. people are known to have died in the flood waters. The floating houses and barns caused a tide of debris to back up at a downtown stone bridge, creating a 30-acre pile. 99 whole families The impressive dam made of packed-down earth stood 72 feet high and 900 feet wide. As it was, many of the town's residents were trapped in the upper floors of their homes when the deadly wave hit. All of the water from Lake Conemaugh rushed forward at 40 miles per hour, sweeping away everything in its path. 400 children under the age of ten were killed. people had already moved their belongings to the second floors of their She was a mother of eight and sought compensation for the loss of her 43-year-old husband. A bridge downstream from the town caught much of the debris and then proceeded to catch fire. The fire continued to burn for three days. YA. Inside, on a local news page, the paper ran a review of "Johnstown and Its Flood," a book about the firsthand memories of author Gertrude Q. Slattery, also known as Mrs. Frank P. Slattery, during the 1889 Johnstown Flood that killed more than 2,200 people. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Their quiet retreat from the city life was just a train ride away from Pittsburgh. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Five days after the flood, the American Society of Civil Engineers, or the ASCE, met to form an official record of the event. black mountain of junk. Beale, Reverend David. Undertakers volunteered for the gruesome task of preparing over 2,000 bodies for burial. The flood hit Johnstown 57 minutes after its original breach of the dam. Testimony Taken by the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1889-1891. 2,209 For instance, William Shinn became the president of the ASCE just five months after the flood and was one of the primary figures who advocated to keep the report sealed for as long as possible (Coleman 2019). Most were entombed under debris which had piled up as high as 70 feet in places, the water had scattered victims far and wide, and many corpses were spotted floating down the river. Train service in and out of Johnstown stopped. A strong surface low pressure of around 1000 mb is centered over Kentucky at this hour and heavy rain is falling . Just when it seemed like it couldn't get worse, it did. Maxwell survived, but all of her children drowned. Unfortunately, it The Club's great wealth rather than the dam's engineering came to be condemned. For copyright reasons our film is not available for purchase. Buildings, livestock, barbed wire, vehicles all were carried with terrifying force downriver. 18 As soon as news of the disaster spread on what had happened to this town, reporters and illustrators from over 100 magazines and newspapers were sent to describe what happened. The Soviet Union, which in 1928 had only 20,000 cars and a single truck factory, was eager to join the ranks of read more. But when trains were finally able to get close to the town, the first items delivered were coffins. As the canal system fell into disuse, maintenance on the dam was neglected. Flooding happened As authorDavid McCulloughnotes, cities across the country raised millions of dollars in relief funds to help rebuild Johnstown. At least the bridge slowed the water down and caught much of the deadly debris. The Johnstown Flood was the first major disaster served by the recently formed Red Cross. sentences. Ruff was a chief stockholder and served, we believe, as president of the club until his death from cancer in March of 1887. That a company carpenter struck Berkman in the back with a hammer. In Johnstown, the Tribune resumed publication on June 14. A few of the club members, most notably Robert Pitcairn, served on relief committees. Market data provided by Factset. The Red Cross also provided warm meals, provisions for daily needs, and medical care. However, there was not enough substantial evidence to hold the club legally responsible. 777 bodies were never identified, buried in unmarked graves. Four In these pre-Social Security days, personnel records for firms like Cambria Iron or the Pennsylvania Railroad are not as sophisticated as they are today. As law professor Jed Handelsman Shugerman notes, in response, courts began adopting a legal precedent that held property owners liable even for "acts of God" if the changes they'd made to the property were directly linked to those acts. The Boers, also known as Afrikaners, were the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of southern Africa. Were the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club held responsible for what happened May 31, 1889? But there was one small blessing on the day: Because so many had already fled, only 16 people from Mineral Point died. Degen, Paula and Carl. Whatever happened to (someone or something)? This new standard prevented negligent businessmen from escaping liability in future lawsuits. Dahlstedt, Marden. Through the Johnstown Flood: By A Survivor by Rev. The Pennsylvania Railroad was closely tied to the other industries in Johnstown and many club members worked for the railroad. Mar. READ MORE: How Americas Most Powerful Men Caused Americas Deadliest Flood. The report admitted that the club removed the pipes, but maintained that in our opinion they cannot be deemed to be the cause of the late disaster, as we find that the embankment would have been overflowed and the breach formed if the changes had not been made (ASCE Report, 1891) As discussed in the, Regardless if they were to blame or not, the public resented that the club members provided little relief relative to their respective wealth. The total population was about 200 people, most of whom worked at the sawmill or the furniture factory. The waters kept rising and around 3 pm spilled over the dam. The three remembered most happened on May 31, 1889, when at least 2,209 people died, the St. Patrick's Day flood of 1936, in which almost two dozen people died, and a third devastating flood on July 19-20, 1977 . In an old Carnegie Library in Johnstown is the Johnstown Flood Museum, owned by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association. There were many doubts regarding the legitimacy of the report. Slattery, Gertrude Quinn. The dam was originally built with discharge pipes, so the only question that remained was who removed them. LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS: The Gilded Age Apocalypse. On May 31, 1889, the Johnstown Flood killed more than 2,200 people in southwestern Pennsylvania when the long-neglected South Fork Dam suddenly gave way. after what went down. The death toll of the Johnstown Flood was worse because the town was already flooded. On July 19th, 1977, an unusual event occurred, resulting in pure chaos: a thunderstorm stalled over the Johnstown area, dumping 12 inches or more of rain in 24 hours. Some people who had survived by floating on top of debris were burned to death in the fire. square miles of downtown Johnstown was completely leveled, including They were buried together in a new cemetery built high above the town. It's difficult to imagine just how much water slammed into Johnstown that day. Though the club members faced no legal consequences, the Johnstown Flood exposed the corruption of businessmen in the Gilded Age. Devastation, then response About 66,000 people. What makes the tragic story of the Johnstown Flood so haunting isn't just the scale of the damage and the loss of life more than 2,200 people ultimately died it's the chain of events leading up to it. After a fire destroyed much of the Palace of Westminsterthe headquarters of the read more, On May 31, 1941, the last of the Allies evacuate after 11 days of battling a successful German parachute invasion of the island of Crete. Eichmann was born in Solingen, Germany, in 1906. McCullough, David G. The Johnstown Flood. No announcement has yet been observed of the millionaires who constitute the South Fork Fishing Club doing anything remarkable toward bearing the expense of caring for the sufferers and clearing away the debris at Johnstown. As law professor Jed Handelsman Shugerman notes, the South Fork Dam held about 20 million tons of water behind it. (AP Photo), This photo from May 31, 1889, released by the Johnstown Flood Museum shows the destruction along Main Street in Johnstown, Pa., following the collapse of the South Fork Dam that killed 2,209 people.
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