Johnstown Area Heritage Association

Student Resources

The Great Flood / Recipe

Recipe for Disaster: Ingredients of a Deadly Flood

Student Resources

Listed below are links to primary and secondary sources for studying the Johnstown Flood. There is a short explanation of primary and secondary sources here, if you aren't familiar with those terms.

General Background

• Johnstown Flood Story
• Johnstown Flood Timeline (PDF)
• Path of the Johnstown Flood Map (PDF)

Topography and Land Use

• US Geological Survey Topographic Map (JPEG for on-screen viewing) (PDF for printing letter-size)
• Aerial Photograph (JPEG for on-screen viewing) (PDF for printing letter-size)

  Layered PDF: Aerial Photography overlayed with USGS Topographic Map (requires Adobe Reader 6.0 or later)

• Map Gallery (historic maps)
• Topography Picture Gallery
• Rivers Picture Gallery
• Canal Picture Gallery
• Lumbering Picture Gallery
• Stone Bridge Picture Gallery

The South Fork Dam

• History of the South Fork Dam
  • Canal era
  • Railroad era
  • South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club era
  • Statement of Robert Pitcarin, PRR President
• The Dam's last moments
  • Description of failure
  • Rev. G. W. Brown (South Fork) account of the dam breaking
  • Colonel Unger's statement to the Pennsylvania Railroad
  • South Fork witnesses interviewed by the PRR
• Inspections
  • Engineering and Building Record's Special Report on the Johnstown Flood
  • Beale's "The Scientific View of the Dam"
• Picture galleries
  • South Fork Dam
  • South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club

Rivers

• Johnstown neighbors discuss the narrowing riverbanks the morning before the Flood
• Storey's river width measurements
• Rivers Picture Gallery
• Pennsylvania Canal Picture Gallery
• Stone Bridge Picture Gallery

Weather

• The Great Storm in the Conemaugh Valley
• The Great Storm in the Susquehanna Valley
• Eyewitness statements taken by the Pennsylvania Railroad

Warnings and evacuation plans

• Telegrams from South Fork
• Mineral Point telegraph operator
• Hettie Ogle's telegraph
• Telephone warning
• PRR Statements
• Hess ties the train whistle down
• George Swank writes about warnings in the Johnstown Tribune
• The "Paul Revere of Johnstown": Fact or Fiction?
• Rev. Beale argues against charges that Johnstown was warned, but didn't listen

Picture Galleries

• Topography Picture Gallery
• Rivers Picture Gallery
• South Fork Dam Picture Gallery
• South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club Picture Gallery
• Pennsylvania Canal Picture Gallery
• Lumbering Picture Gallery
• Stone Bridge Picture Gallery
• Picture Gallery of Johnstown before the Flood of 1889
• Map Gallery (historic maps)

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