Existing comment:
You're seeing a panoramic photograph taken from what would have been the far side of the South Fork Dam. In the shadows on the left is one side of the dam and you can see a platform on the opposite shore. The area between was, of course, where the dam itself disappeared to cause the flood. To the right of the dam, somewhere above where this picture was taken from, was Lake Conemaugh.
On the opposite shore, the long stretch of handrails are where the spillway was supposed to be but it wasn't because the country club had turned it into a fish pond. The barn-like structure on the far shore is actually the visitor center. However, during the flood it was the farm of Colonel Elias J Unger, the last president of the South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club. The structure to the right of it was his house. On the morning of May 31 1889, he ran down to the dam from his house and his nightmare began. |