Existing comment:
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. |