Student Resources

Below are links to primary and secondary sources for studying the Johnstown Flood, specific to the “Recipe for Disaster: Ingredients of a Deadly Flood” module. Here is a short explanation of primary and secondary sources, 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 (PDF)
• Aerial photograph (PDF)
  • Layered PDF: Aerial photography overlaid with USGS Topographic Map
• Map gallery (historic maps)
• Topography picture gallery
• Rivers picture gallery
• Canal picture gallery
• Lumbering picture gallery
• Stone Bridge photo gallery

The South Fork Dam

History of the South Fork Dam

• Canal era
• Railroad era
• South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club era
• Statement of Robert Pitcairn, PRR president (from Johnstown Flood National Memorial site)

The dam’s final 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 PA Railroad

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 Fishing & Hunting Club

Rivers

• Johnstown neighbors discuss the narrowing riverbanks the morning before the flood
• Storey’s measurements of the river width
• Rivers photo gallery
• PA Canal photo gallery
• Stone Bridge photo gallery

Weather

• The Great Storm in the Conemaugh Valley
• The Great Storm in the Susquehanna Valley
• Eyewitness statements (on Johnstown Flood National Memorial website)

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

Photo galleries

• Views of Johnstown before the flood
• Map gallery (historic maps)
• Topography picture gallery
• Rivers picture gallery
• Canal picture gallery
• Lumbering picture gallery
• Stone Bridge photo gallery
• South Fork Dam
• South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club