Founded in 1794, Johnstown grew into a steel company town of Germans and Welsh and, by 1889, had a population of 30,000 and a reputation for quality steel. It prospered with the Pennsylvania Mainline Canal in 1834 and later with the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Cambria Iron Company in the 1850's. Fourteen miles up the Little Conemaugh River, the poorly maintained South Fork Dam stood 450 feet higher than Johnstown, and though townspeople often talked each spring about whether it would hold, it always had before. At 4:07 p.m. on May 31, 1889, after a night of heavy rains, the dam failed and sent 20 million tons of water down the narrow valley. The flood wall rose to 60 feet high, moved at 40 miles per hour, leveled nearly everything in its path, and was over in 10 minutes. As darkness fell, thousands huddled in attics, others floated on debris, and many were swept to the old Stone Bridge, where wreckage piled against the arches, caught fire, and trapped 80 people who had survived the first wave. Emergency morgues, hospitals, and commissaries were established, and people across the nation sent money, food, clothing, medical aid, and time, but cleanup took years and full recovery took 5 years. Survivors largely blamed the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, whose wealthy Pittsburgh steel and coal industrialist members had bought the abandoned reservoir, repaired the old dam, raised the lake level, and built cottages and a clubhouse there. The disaster killed 2,209 people, including 99 entire families and 396 children; left 124 women and 198 men widowed; destroyed 1,600 homes and four square miles of downtown Johnstown; caused $17 million in property damage; left more than 750 victims unidentified in the Plot of the Unknown in Grandview Cemetery; and swept bodies as far as Cincinnati, some not found until 1911. The debris at the Stone Bridge covered 30 acres, flood lines reached 89 feet above river level, the great wave measured 35 to 40 feet high, several 170,000-pound locomotives were swept as far as 4,800 feet, and $3,742,818.78 was collected for relief from within the U.S. and 18 foreign countries. The American Red Cross, led by Clara Barton and organized in 1881, arrived on June 5, 1889, in its first major peacetime disaster relief effort, and Johnstown later suffered other major floods in 1936 and 1977.

Photo: Mike Wintermantel

Johnstown, Pennsylvania · USA