BGuthrie Photos: PA -- Johnstown -- Johnstown Flood Museum

PA -- Johnstown -- Johnstown Flood Museum:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. JFMUS_160531_007.JPG: Johnstown Public Library Erected by the Cambria Iron Co. 1879 Destroyed by the flood of May 31, 1889 Rebuilded Enlarged & Improved by Andrew Carnegie 1891
2. JFMUS_160531_037.JPG: Johnstown, 1889 By the 1880s, Johnstown and its suburbs had 30,000 residents, many of whom were descendants of German, Welsh and Irish immigrants who had come early in the century to farm, mine iron ore, dig the Pennsylvania Canal and later, to build the railroad. As a former stop on the Underground Railroad, Johnstown had also become home for a small black community. By the 1870s, Johnstown's population included a new wave of immigrants, factory workers and merchants from southern and eastern Europe. By 1880, the city even had two Chinese laundries. For most Johnstowners, work was hard, leisure time scarce and entertainments few. The city's many churches, masonic lodges, benevolent clubs and neighborhood saloons provided the most opportunities for socializing.
3. JFMUS_160531_049.JPG: A Company Town In 1889, Johnstown was the business hub of a cluster of smaller communities, each one economically dependent on the Cambria Iron Company, the valley's major industry. Together with its subsidiaries, Cambria Iron employed over 7,000 workers, most of whom lived in company-owned tenements, shopped at the company store and, when they were sick or injured, recuperated in the company hospital. The Cambria Iron Company pioneered the technology that helped push America into a new age of steel. The company's products were used to build the nation's railroads, skyscrapers and bridges, including the Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883.
4. JFMUS_160531_059.JPG: The South Fork Dam, once part of the old state canal system, suffered decades of neglect.
5. JFMUS_160531_063.JPG: The South Fork Reservoir supplied water to the Pennsylvania Canal during the dry season. "We were afraid of that lake... No one could see the immense height to which that artificial dam had been built without fearing the tremendous power of the water behind it." -- A Johnstown resident
6. JFMUS_160531_067.JPG: Up and Over the Mountain The completion of the Allegheny Portage Railroad in 1834 united the western and eastern divisions of the Pennsylvania Canal, creating a direct route between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Johnstown, located at the meeting of two major rivers, became the western terminus for the portage railroad, an ingenious system that lifted barges out of the canal, hauled them up and over the Allegheny mountain range and then lowered them into the canal on the other side. Having conquered the mountains, state engineers sought to solve the canal's seasonal dry spells by damming a reservoir high in the mountains to supply water to the canal. But by 1852, the year the South Fork Dam was finished, the Pennsylvania Railroad opened its first line across the state, making the old canal system obsolete. The new reservoir and dam, no longer needed, were abandoned to the effects of weather and erosion.
7. JFMUS_160531_070.JPG: A canal boat from Hollidaysburg en route to Johnstown
8. JFMUS_160531_076.JPG: Decay and Repair The abandoned South Fork Dam gradually deteriorated. Over the years, leaks developed, the discharge pipes were sold for scrap and, in 1862, a portion of the dam collapsed. The potential for disaster became more acute after the dam was purchased by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. The new owners not only failed to make adequate repairs, but seriously compromised safety features that had been part of the original design. With each passing year, the enormous earthen dam continued to weaken, and the danger of a major break drew closer.
9. JFMUS_160531_084.JPG: The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club In 1879, a group of wealthy Pittsburgh industrialists and businessmen bought the lake with its surrounding land and created a resort where members could fish and hunt wild game. They renamed the old reservoir Lake Conemaugh, stocked it with game fish, and launched a fleet of small craft -- sailboats, canoes and even a few steam-powered yachts. By 1889, the club had 66 members, 16 private summer homes and a large clubhouse. At a time when few Americans had vacations, the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was part of a new trend among the wealthy to escape the city's summer heat by retiring to country resorts. The club was modest when compared with Newport, but just as exclusive, creating much resentment among locals who had once been able to fish in the old reservoir.
10. JFMUS_160531_089.JPG: This diorama featuring a stuffed frog was a prominent fixture in the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Clubhouse.
11. JFMUS_160531_096.JPG: The Dam Breaks On May 31, 1889, during unprecedented rainstorms, the dam broke in spite of desperate efforts to save it. The reservoir's 20 million tons of water rushed downhill through the narrow Conemaugh Valley, gathering a wall of debris that crashed into Johnstown with a volume and force comparable to that of Niagara Falls. The flood destroyed everything in its path, struck a nearby hillside, and then washed back across the city. Torrents of rushing water swept up houses and sent their occupants on terrifying rides through the swirling wreckage.
12. JFMUS_160531_107.JPG: The Stone Bridge Houses, trees, boxcars, barbed wire, animals and human beings were swept down the Conemaugh River to the Stone Bridge where an enormous pile of wreckage quickly accumulated. Shortly after dusk, oil and other flammable debris caught fire, igniting the huge pile into a furious blaze that burned for three days. People caught in the fire struggled to escape, helped by heroic rescuers who risked their lives by stepping onto the burning mountain. Hundreds were saved, but perhaps as many as 80 others died.
13. JFMUS_160531_110.JPG: Ruined Johnstown (above). The distant smoke is from the burning debris at the Stone Bridge, shown below in a closer view.
14. JFMUS_160531_119.JPG: The night of the flood, stranded survivors helplessly watched the flames and listened to the screams of the dying. One eye witness said: "I saw hundreds of them as the flames approached throw up their hands and fall backward into the fire, and those who had escaped drowning were reserved for the more horrible fate of being burned to death."
15. JFMUS_160531_121.JPG: The Schultz home, upended and impaled by a marauding tree, was carried nearly half a mile from its original location, and yet all six members of the family survived.
16. JFMUS_160531_124.JPG: A Cambria Iron Company mill building in ruins
17. JFMUS_160531_132.JPG: Wooden buildings were torn from their foundations, tossed about, and carried great distances from their original locations.
18. JFMUS_160531_133.JPG: The photograph above shows the house (marked with an x) where Moses "Flood" Williams was born the day of the flood, after his mother experienced a harrowing ride up the Stonycreek River in the attic of a drifting house.
19. JFMUS_160531_137.JPG: Bottle of floodwater, collected the second day after the flood by Mrs. John Munro of Gallitzin, Pennsylvania. She and her husband had come to Johnstown on a sightseeing excursion organized from Altoona.
20. JFMUS_160531_145.JPG: Flag that had decorated a Main Street home in honor of Memorial Day, the day before the flood. Trunk owned by Minnie Huston, who died in the flood. The trunk was found in a church downtown, far from the Hulbert House where Minnie Huston had been employed.
21. JFMUS_160531_153.JPG: Contents found in the pocket of flood victim Vincent Quinn: change purse, clipping and notebook from the family store.
22. JFMUS_160531_160.JPG: Telegraph sounder, owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad. This may be the equipment that was used on the day of the flood to transmit warnings from South Fork to Johnstown's Western Union telegraph operator, Hettie Ogle.
23. JFMUS_160531_165.JPG: Hettie Ogle Just before 3:00pm, on the day of the flood, Hettie Ogle received a message from South Fork that the dam "may possibly go." Mrs. Ogle stayed at her post, sent warnings to local offices, and wired Pittsburgh that this would be her last message, since the telegraph lines were going underwater. By this time, however, the dam had already broken. Mrs. Ogle's house was destroyed and her body was never recovered.
24. JFMUS_160531_171.JPG: Facts About the Flood 2,209 people died, 1 out of every 10 living in the various neighborhoods affected by the flood. The destruction of downtown Johnstown took less than 10 minutes, according to a young survivor of the flood, Victor Heiser, who happened to check his pocketwatch. 99 entire families were lost. 396 children under the age of 10 died, and 568 children lost one or both parents. 124 women and 198 men were widowed. Bodies were found as far away as Cincinnati, Ohio and as late as 1906. 1,600 homes and 280 businesses were destroyed. Because of the heavy rains, the dam contained 20,000,000 tons of water before it broke. This is equivalent to the volume of water that goes over Niagara Falls in 36 minutes. Flood lines were found as high as 89 feet above river level, and the crest of the wave was 37 feet high when it entered the downtown part of the city. Th force of the flood swept several locomotives weighing 170,000 lbs. as far as 4,800 feet. 4 square miles of downtown Johnstown were completely destroyed. The deep pile of debris at the Stone Bridge covered 30 acres. 12 books were written about the flood within six months. A total of $3,742,818.78 was collected for the Johnstown relief effort from the United States and 16 foreign countries.
25. JFMUS_160531_174.JPG: Finding the Dead The threat of typhus and other epidemic diseases made the immediate burial of the dead essential. The first telegram sent out of the city after the flood requested "coffins of all sizes." Search parties brought the dead to temporary morgues where morticians numbered each body and recorded in detail identifying traits. Then the bodies were quickly buried, to be exhumed later for proper burial by relatives who could identify loved ones through the morgue descriptions. Not surprisingly, nearly 700 of the dead were never claimed.
26. JFMUS_160531_186.JPG: James M. Shumaker's ledger for the Fourth Ward School Building morgue, one of Johnstown's nine temporary morgues. People spent days poring over morgue books, looking for entries that described their lost kin. Shumaker, himself, had lost his wife and four children in the flood. Their bodies were never recovered.
27. JFMUS_160531_189.JPG: Medical Care Within a week after the flood, 98 doctors had arrived in the city to staff makeshift hospitals. There were, however, relatively few injuries, presumably because most of the injured had drowned in the flood. Prevention of disease demanded the hasty collection of the dead and severed body parts, a horrifying task to which the morgues' catalogues bear grim witness. Despite great fears of epidemics, there was only one outbreak of typhus that was soon brought under control.
28. JFMUS_160531_198.JPG: Order Out of Chaos Saturday, June 1 Arthur J. Moxham is elected chairman of Johnstown's Citizens' Committee to reestablish order within the city, rescue the living, set up morgues and start clearing away debris. In Pittsburgh, concerned citizens form a Relief Committee. In one day the committee receives over $48,000; its first train load of supplies leaves for Johnstown at 4:00pm. General Daniel H. Hastings, Adjutant-General of the State Militia, arrives in Johnstown. As soon as a telegraph line is repaired, he sends for men and supplies. The first two temporary hospitals are established. Sunday, June 2: Volunteers and relief supplies reach Johnstown from the west via the Pennsylvania Railroad. Medical supplies and doctors arrive from Pittsburgh. Within the week, 98 doctors come to Johnstown as volunteers. The Pennsylvania State Board of Health reports to Moxham and Hastings to assist with medical care and sanitation in flood area. Seven railroad cars laden with coffins arrive from Allegheny.
29. JFMUS_160531_201.JPG: Monday, June 3: Governor James A. Beaver of Pennsylvania issues national appeal for aid for victims of the flood. Before noon, four cars of provision reach the B&O Railroad platforms in Johnstown. Supplies are quickly unloaded and distributed. Philadelphia's first shipment of food arrives by evening. A crew of 3,000 laborers -- sent by Booth & Flinn, a Pittsburgh contractor -- arrives. By the end of the week, an army of 6,000 workers is clearing away debris. Partially restored railroad service also brings hundreds of sightseers. Tuesday, June 4: Moxham resigns as head of Johnstown's Citizens' Committee, which reorganizes under James B. Scott of the Pittsburgh Relief Committee. To supervise the relief effort and coordinate the activities of the thousands of volunteer workers, Scott appoints 19 committees: * Finance * Morgue * Commissary * Supplies * Teams * Removal of Dead Animals * Removal of General Debris * Dangerous Buildings * Police * Outside Search for the Dead * Transportation and Information * Hospitals * Fire Departments * Sanitary * Employment * Registration * Valuables * Timekeeping and Books * Department of Public Safety, combining the local, special, and military police under General Hastings. Wednesday, June 5: Clara Barton arrives with American Red Cross workers. During its five-month stay in Johnstown, the Red Cross shelters the homeless, provides medical care and disperses blankets, clothing and food. The Johnstown Flood Finance Committee is formed to distribute all donations sent directly to Johnstown. This was the only relief group administered by Johnstowners themselves.
30. JFMUS_160531_204.JPG: Sunday, June 9: Pennsylvania Governor James A. Beaver inspects the disaster area; calls a meeting with James B. Scott, General Daniel H. Hastings, and on-site relief workers from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. They agree that the enormous task at hand requires the State of Pennsylvania to take charge of the entire relief effort.
31. JFMUS_160531_208.JPG: Wednesday, June 12: General Hastings, chief-of-operations of the state government's relief effort, assumes control of Johnstown's emergency recovery. He supervises the diverse relief agencies already at work in the valley, and coordinates their activities: feeding and housing relief workers, clearing away debris, helping local businesses reopen and distributing clothing, food, building supplies and temporary houses to flood victims. Hastings remains in charge until July 8, when the city is returned to civilian authority.
32. JFMUS_160531_214.JPG: Out of the Ruins Daybreak revealed the appalling extend of Johnstown's tragedy. As one observer wrote: "Hands of the dead stuck out from the ruins. Dead everywhere you went, their arms stretched above their heads." Relatives and friends searched desperately for loved ones, while others, in a state of shock, roamed aimlessly about the city. Substantial help would not arrive for another 24 hours, but in the meantime, many survivors found food and shelter with families who lived above the floodline.
33. JFMUS_160531_216.JPG: On the morning of June 1st, survivors began to come down from the hillsides, to search for what remained of their homes. Many found nothing at all: entire neighborhoods had been wiped out, or buried under acres of debris. 1,600 homes were destroyed, and thousands of people were without shelter.
34. JFMUS_160531_225.JPG: The house, located on an alley in the Moxham neighborhood, as it looked just before it was moved to the Flood Museum.
35. JFMUS_160531_229.JPG: A family living in the Oklahoma house around 1900
36. JFMUS_160531_232.JPG: In the days that followed the 1889 Flood, survivors sought shelter in any structure for miles around. Some fashioned crude tents from blankets or built lean-tos of doors and planks dragged from the wreckage. Among the first temporary houses erected to meet this need were some 310 "Okalhoma Houses' that were distributed by the Housing Distribution Committee of the Johnstown Flood Finance Committee. Originally manufactured for homesteaders in the Oklahoma Territory, these Oklahoma houses were a very early example of prefabricated housing that was manufactured in Chicago. Hughes & Hoover Co. of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania erected the Oklahoma houses came in two sizes -- 16-by-24 feet and 10-by-20 feet. In some cases, families combined one large and one small Oklahoma. The Oklahomas were provided with furnishings. The small houses were poorly suited for Johnstown's climate, and few owners found them satisfactory. A reporter from the Harrisburg Telegraph, after examining one of the small Oklahomas, described it as having "... about as many points of architectural beauty as the coal shed behind a country school house... It is not as warm as an 'A' tent and not half as roomy." To survivors who had seen their houses splinter into pieces, the Oklahomas were at least some kind of house. The destitute families were glad to get a furnished house without spending a cent. The Oklahoma houses are significant in two respects: they document the living conditions of average Johnstown residents in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, and they represent one of the first examples of ready-made housing in the United States.
37. JFMUS_160531_235.JPG: Helping a Stricken Sister Johnstown, 1889
38. JFMUS_160531_238.JPG: The silver lining to the storm-cloud -- the charity of the whole nation sustains the loss of the Conemaugh sufferers.
39. JFMUS_160531_253.JPG: The World's Generosity: On June 1, Pittsburgh sent Johnstown its first shipment of supplies and volunteers and more help would soon arrive from all over the country. Railroad companies speedily repaired washed-out tracks and kept the lines to Johnstown open for relief trains which, over the following months, carried an estimated 1,400 carloads of donated goods, including food, clothes, medical supplies, building materials and coffins. The generosity shown to Johnstown from people all over the world was unprecedented.
40. JFMUS_160531_269.JPG: The American Red Cross The American Red Cross, organized in 1881 by Clara Barton, arrived in Johnstown on June 5. The flood was the Red Cross's first major disaster relief project and Clara Barton herself came to supervise the enormous task at hand. Her work in Johnstown established the Red Cross as the nation's primary relief agency. 1. Clara Barton was 67 years old when she came to Johnstown. Her extraordinary efforts, especially in finding temporary housing for the homeless, won her the city's lasting affection. One editorialist wrote, "Too much cannot be said in praise of this lady... To her timely and heroic work, more than to that of any other human being, are the people of the Conemaugh Valley indebted." 2. Clara Barton's headquarters.
41. JFMUS_160531_273.JPG: 4. Clara Barton (center) and her Red Cross workers. Barton arrived from Washington, DC, the Wednesday following the flood with a delegation of volunteers. One member of Barton's staff was Dr. Clara J. Alexander, a former Johnstowner.
42. JFMUS_160531_276.JPG: 6. The Red Cross buildings on Walnut Street, including an infirmary as well as a large warehouse where supplies such as clothing, lumber, and furniture were collected and distributed.
43. JFMUS_160531_280.JPG: 5. Portrait of Clara Barton, who gave her photograph as a memento to many Johnstowners.
44. JFMUS_160531_284.JPG: 12. Passcards issued by the State Militia. Relief workers were not allowed to travel about the city unless they carried an official identification.
45. JFMUS_160531_285.JPG: 9. Pages from the Johnstown Flood Finance Committee's minutes book show the acceptance and distribution of funds.
46. JFMUS_160531_298.JPG: Survivors' Aid: In commissaries set up in and around Johnstown, relief workers rationed out tons of donated food, blankets and clothing to crowds of flood survivors. In addition, hundreds of prefabricated temporary houses were erected for the homeless.
47. JFMUS_160531_314.JPG: 11. The Johnstown flood, the most sensational story of its time, spurred the publication of dozens of books, the first appearing just seven days after the event. Publishers, aware of the public's desire for news of the "greatest calamity of modern times," actively recruited agents to boost book sales in as many markets as possible.
48. JFMUS_160531_320.JPG: These 3 screws was [sic] picked up near Conemaugh ... ... of a vestibule car that was wrecked and burned during the Great flood of May 31st 1889
49. JFMUS_160531_329.JPG: Before you talk about your experiences during the Johnstown Flood, you should know that Noah is in the audience.
50. JFMUS_160531_334.JPG: A New Johnstown: Johnstown's recovery began the day after the flood and continued with increasing momentum until the city did indeed become "grander than ever." Most Johnstowners rebuilt their houses, and a new era of growth, bolstered by the nation's booming economy, brought many municipal improvements. Johnstown and its outlying boroughs consolidated, the city's first public hospitals was built, and new suburbs began to appear on the surrounding hilltops.
51. JFMUS_160531_336.JPG: In the distance, smoke pours from the Cambria Iron Company. In spite of $3,000,000 losses, parts of the Iron Works were back in operation as early as June 10.
52. JFMUS_160531_351.JPG: The Cambria Public Library in 1905. Andrew Carnegie donated the funds to build the library.
53. JFMUS_160531_359.JPG: Main Street about six months after the flood. Business resumed in temporary structures.
54. JFMUS_160531_361.JPG: The Cambria Public Library You are standing in the Cambria Public Library which now houses the Johnstown Flood Museum. Money for the library, which was completed in 1891, was donated by Andrew Carnegie who visited flood-ravaged Johnstown in September 1889. During his stay he promised to replace the library that had been lost in the flood.
55. JFMUS_160531_366.JPG: Central Park in 1894, completely refurbished
56. JFMUS_160531_378.JPG: Site of the broken South Fork Dam (line marks height of dam)
57. JFMUS_160531_380.JPG: The Lost Lake: While the city was being rebuilt, the lake that caused its destruction all but disappeared. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club abandoned its vacation grounds and cottages. The residents of the Conemaugh Valley blamed the millionaires' club for the failure of the dam and the deaths of over two thousand people. Lawsuits citing the club's negligence, however, failed to win any settlements for the victims. The sportsmen argued in their defense that the dam's breaking was not their fault but an "act of God," caused by the heavy rains that inundated the lake. In any case, the club itself had only $35,000 in assets, and fixing individual blame would have been difficult since Benjamin Ruff, the man responsible for repairing the dam, had died years before.
58. JFMUS_160531_382.JPG: Tourists pose for their picture in a field that was once Lake Conemaugh
59. JFMUS_160531_384.JPG: The Grandview Monument: On May 31, 1892, Johnstown unveiled its monument to the unknown men, women and children who died in the great flood. Thousands of people attended, a military band played, and dignitaries spoke. The "last public act of the tragedy of Conemaugh" commemorated 734 unknown dead, a number that would eventually increase to 755.
60. JFMUS_160531_395.JPG: The fact that victims of the Johnstown Flood continued to be found long after the disaster is demonstrated in this article from the Johnstown Tribune dated January, 1890. It describes the discovery of William W. Mills, whose well preserved body was found seven months after the flood. He was identified by his widow. She and the couple's six children were safe in their Franklin Borough home, but William was caught by the deluge on his way home from work at the Gaultier Wire Mill.
61. JFMUS_160531_408.JPG: Oklahoma House: Used as temporary housing for survivors of the 1889 flood
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Johnstown Flood Museum
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The Johnstown Flood Museum is a history museum located in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The museum is housed in the Cambria Public Library Building.

On May 31, 1889, a neglected dam above the city of Johnstown that held back a lake, burst. An hour later, a 40-foot wall of water, reaching 40 miles an hour, raced into Johnstown. It killed 2,209 people, leaving thousands homeless and a prosperous town a wasteland.

The Johnstown Flood Museum chronicles the events of the flood through many exhibits and media. Every hour, the museum shows the Academy Award winning documentary, The Johnstown Flood in the Robert S. Waters Theater. This documentary, created by filmmaker Charles Guggenheim, tells the gruesome tale from before the dam broke to the horrifying aftermath of the destruction. The theater and the film were refurbished and upgraded in 2009–2010. The film, which had been shown on 35 mm film since 1989, has been transferred onto a high-definition digital format, enabling a perfect presentation every time the film is shown. New projection equipment and theater controls were installed as well. Finally, the film now features captions for the deaf and hearing-impaired. The seats were reupholstered, and carpet has been replaced.

Exhibits include the relief map that uses lights and sounds to display the path of the flood. Surrounding the map are several artifacts including a bottle of flood water, the wall of debris, a morgue book, and a quilt used to drag survivors to safety. You can also view cartoons and movie clips that are centered on the flood as well as news reports and Victorian Steroptic photographs.

The museum also features a restored Oklahoma house, a temporary structure used to house survivors. The house is 1 1/2 stories and there were only a few rooms.
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