Austin, Pennsylvania Flood

Sept 30, 1911

Dam of the Bayless Pulp and Paper company burned, one mile and a half north of Austin, PA.

Four hundred million five hundred thousand gallons of water rushed down upon the town.

Between 850 and 1,000 persons were drowned or burned to death.

Hundreds of others believed to have been swept away by the great torrent.

Fire follows bursting of natural gas mains.

Scores of persons caught beneath debris and slowly cremated.

More than 1,000 buildings wrecked.

Heavy rains of the past two weeks caused reservoir to fill for the first time since erected two years ago.

Food supply has been swept away.

Physicians, nurses and supplies being rushed from surrounding towns to Austin.

National Red Cross society will aid in relief work.

Governor Tener has ordered state health and charity officials to the scene, together with Adjutant General Stewart and a large police force of state police.

Austin has a population of 3,200.

Costello, town of 450 population, below Austin, also swept away.

Practically every building destroyed by water and fire burning at several points.

Austin, PA, Oct. 2 -- Nearly a thousand were drowned and untold numbers were maimed here when the great dam of the Bayless Pulp and Paper Company, holding back more than 050,000,000 gallons of water, went out Saturday.  Many bodies have been recovered, many of them so maimed that recognition is impossible.  The survivors are in a frenzy.  There is no organization, the being dazed by the force of the calamity which came without a moment's warning.  Hundreds of men, women and children are searching through the ruins of the village for their families and friends.  The only light is the glare of hundreds of houses which caught fire from broken gas pipes almost before the flood had passed.  Chaos reigned from the moment the mighty wall of water tore through the town and there will be no relief until help comes from the surrounding towns.  Meantime many bodies lie in wake of the flood.

Dam of Improved Construction.  The dam was built two years ago.  It was 530 feet long, spanning the little valley formed by Freeman run, and rising to the height of 49 feet.  It was of concrete, 32 feet wide at the base, and said to be constructed after the most approved plans of modern engineering.

The basin behind it had never been filled with water until this week and Saturday it was noticed that water was running over the top of the structure.  Many persons went out of town a mile and a half away to see the unusual sight, and it was while they were watching the overflowing water that the break occurred.

The course of the flood was through the business center of the little village.  Many of the buildings were of wood, and those which were not immediately wrecked by the torrent were soon in flames.

So sudden was the onslaught of water that many persons had no time to flee the hills, but others received the warning and believing it was fire, hastened to the center of town, only to be caught in the flood and swept away.

The flood passed quickely, leaving desolation in its wake.  Houses had been crushed and tossed about like toys, while hundreds of bodies had been carried down on the crest of the surging torrent.

With the passing of the water, those who had fled to the hills hastened to return to their ruined homes in search of relatives and friends.  Here and there bodies had been cast up along the path of the torrent, and about forty bodies were recovered in a short time.  Some of them had been battered so badly by the tossing that they were beyond recognition, while others had been carried along with no apparent injury.  Many were caught in the burning buildings, and it will be days before the real extent of the calamity is known.

It is estimated that a thousand buildings have been torn from their foundations and crushed in the flood or have been destroyed by fire.  The water made its way through the business section of the town and left only four buildings standing.  The valley of Freeman's run is narrow, and the town was built along its banks.  All the buildings in the lower part of the valley were swept clear of their foundations by the torrent, and many of those which remained standing fell prey to the flames.

The Iowa Recorder,  Greene, IA, 4 Oct 1911, page 9

The first reports of a thousand killed in the Austin floods have been cut down by subsequent investigations.  It was good news, indeed, that the killed were not so many as first believed.  But with 150 dead the tragedy at the dam was bad enough.

The Iowa Recorder,  Greene, IA, 4 Oct 1911, page 1

Austin Pa., Sept 30. -- Possibly 500 persons, most of them women and children are dead tonight; their bodies scattered through the valley by the 200,000,000 gallons of water that dashed faster than a mile a minute and foaming in a well fifty feet high swept down Freeman's run this afternoon from the broken dam of the Bayless Pulp mill and snuffed out this little city.  The deluge was followed by fire.

Austin is a wreck.  The living are hardly able to seek the dead.  Nearly every survivor suffered a broken limb or strain or wound.

The flood swept through Austin, crushing nearly every one of its 500 houses.  There was no warning.  There came a roar, and then the shock of the flood the crash of the timbers, the screams of fear.

On the crest of the wave rode a thousand cords of pulp mill timber.  This hit houses and stores like a succession of battering rains.  It riddled the flimsy frame homes of the mill workers like charges of canister and left great gaps in their sides.  It struck unto unconsciousness the terror stricken people seeking to swim the flood to safety.

The water passed the city in a solid wall two miles in length.  The course from the creek was down the valley of the Sinnemahoning river, along whose banks there are hundreds of houses this evening covered by the swollen river or wrecked.

The town of Costello, three miles south, but much smaller, was also wrecked, but timely word from Austin saved the lives of most there.

The pulp mill, half a mile north of Austin, felt the force of the flood.  It was torn from its foundations, with its great piles of logs, and doubled back upon the city.  The Goodyear lumber yards had 7,000,000 feet of lumber in storage.

At the outskirts of the city this was added to the great log water battering dam which formed the apex of the flood.

The planning mill and the big hotel and store buildings fell before the hammering of the great logs.  The Davis house and the Goodyear house are large brick structures, as are the First National bank building and the telephone exchange.

The main stores, Nelson brothers, Higgins brothers, Sykes Clothing store, Pallou Clothing store and Muschke's furniture store were destroyed.  The school house is a wreck.  The Commercial hotel, Goodyear house and Pelham house all went down.

The churches were left standing.

The escape of more than two score who survived the onslaught of the flood was cut off by a long wire fence which ran along the creek.  When the flood had passed rescuing parties found the bodies caught in the wires and terribly torn.

Many bodies are being recovered along the banks of the river, some had been swept five miles below the city.

Rescuing parties are busy fighting the flames tonight, seeking to save the bodies buried there from incineration.   Many were imprisoned in houses washed on to high ground by the flood, but soon licked up within the fire zone.

State Senator F. A. Baldwin narrowly escaped death.  His father and mother were downed.  Baldwin fought gallantly against the waters to save his aged parents, but without success.

Fire departments from Smithport, Coudersport, Bradfort and Keating Summit were rushed here to fight the flames.  The wreck of the buildings left the gas mains open and the flames spread rapidly.

All of the buildings not completely destroyed by flood was swept by the fire, which blazed along the ruins, jumping from gas pipe to gas pipe.

The Austin hospital was soon filled with injured and bodies were piled up in rows on the lawn outside.  Twice trains from Keating carried food and clothing, doctors nurses and medicines into the destroyed town and brought the injured on their return.  The hospital is situated on a high hill and escaped the flood.

Among the first refugees to reach Keating's Summit was the chief druggist of Austin.  He had seen his mother caught in the falling walls of their home beside the store, and killed.  He barely escaped with his life.

When the water swept past the mountain of broken wood, of tumbled stone and brick and of warped wires at the intersection of Main and Turner streets, it was flooded twenty feet deep and of still increasing momentum.

The school house and Costello, like the hospital at Austin, stands on a hill, but it was destroyed, and that tells in a nutshell the damage to the town.

Not a quarter of Costello's buildings were so well situated.

The people of Costello heard the onrushing waters in time to escape.

The Iowa Recorder,  Greene, IA, 4 Oct 1911, page 1

Typed as it appeared in the paper.

In January 1910, when the dam on Freeman's Run in Austin, Pennsylvania, cracked and slipped 4 feet on its foundation, the Bayless Pulp & Paper Mill spent $1,000,000 to repair the cracks and reinforce the foundation. However, few of Austin's residents believed the dam to be structurally sound. The Emporium Lumber Company, located about 1/2 mile downstream from the dam, shipped their highest grades of wood from its mills to prevent inventory loss should the dam break again. On September 30, 1911, heavy rains filled the Bayless reservoir and broke the concrete dam. An estimated 400 million gallons of water rushed over Austin and continued through the valley, destroying property as far as eight miles downstream. In Austin, 50 people were killed, and 38 more were reported missing or presumed dead. Only the Emporium Lumber Company Mill and the Bayless Mill remained standing. The Bayless Pulp & Paper Company (the owner of the dam) paid over $2,000,000 in negligence claims. The Emporium Lumber Company Mill, surrounded by its inventory loss, continued to operate in Austin for two more years, perhaps because of its foresight in keeping its inventory to a minimum.

Emporium Lumber Company's Hardwood Mill at Austin, PA After the 1911 Flood

List of the Dead and Missing

Baldwin, John E. - 74 years
Baldwin, Mrs. John E. - never found
Barnes, Clarence - 3 years
Bateau, Miss Alice - 20 years
Beebe, Mrs. Roxa - 77 years
Benson, Mrs. Andrew - 62 years
Benson, Ellen - 9 years
Broadt, Adam - 76 years
Broadt, Mrs. Adam - 69 - never found
Brown, Mrs. Anna M. - 33 years
Collins, Mrs. Grace Baldwin - 32 years
Decker, Mrs. Jonas - 58 years
Donofrio, Ralph - 30 years
Donofrio - Mrs. Ralph - 30 years
Donofrio - Emma - 7 years - never found
Donofrio - Virginia - 6 years - never found
Donofrio - Monolla - 5 years
Donofrio - Joseph - 3 years - never found
Donofrio - Antonio - 4 months
Duell, Martha Kinnicutt - 44 years
Dumohosky, Joseph - 35 years
Durmik, Joseph
Durmik, Mrs. Joseph
Durmik, Baby
Earle, Edwin A. - 54 years
Elliott, Mrs. Mina Helwig - 36 years
Ensworth, Arthur (lawyer) - 56 years
Erway, Edwin - 20 years
Erway, Mrs. Edwin - 16 years
Filan, Mrs. Anna
Fitzgerald, Mrs. Anna - 60 years
Foster, Mrs. Louisa - 65 years
Fundator, Mrs. Frances - 24 years
Fundator, Edward - 1 year - never found
Glaspy, Mrs. John - 48 years
Harper, Mrs. Jessie - 39 years
Harper, Miss Jessie - 13 years
Harvey, Mrs. Adeline - 55 years
Helwig, Mrs. George - 63 years - never found
Hess, Mrs. Maggie - 52 years
Hess, William - 23 years
Hodges, Mrs. - Died in Costello
Jackson, Miss Anna - 20 years
Junk, Miss Josephine
Karpinski, Miss Mary - 22 years
Lawler, Mrs. Margaret E. - 23 years
Lawler, Agatha - 2 years
Lockwood, Mrs. Zella
Maguire, Thomas - 58 years
Mansuey, Mrs. Mary - 29 years
Mansuey, Elias - 10 months
Mascynski, John
Mascynski, Mrs. John (Mary) - 26 years
McKinney, Mrs. Olive - 42 years - never found
McManus, Terrance - 38 years - Died of exposure
McNamara, Joseph - 3 years
Meltzer, Miss Flossie - 18 years
Michelrosky, Miss Frances [McCloskey]
Miller, Edith - 21 years
Nelson, William - 48 years
Nelson, Mrs. William
Pearson, Mrs. Mary - 46 years
Reese, Herbert R. - 6 years
Rennicks, Mrs. Mayme K. - 32 years
Rennicks, Arnold - 7 years - never found
Rennicks, Evelyn - 3 years
Ritchie, Mrs. Lena Graham - 32 years
Sofield, Mrs. Amelia - 70 years
Starkweather, Mrs. Harriett - 43 years
Swald, Miss Martha C. - 17 years
Swartwood, Mrs. Julia A. - 53 years
Sykes, Mrs. Frank - 24 years
Sykes, Gilbert - 4 years
Sykes, Mervin - 3 years
Sykes, Baby - never found
Wilbur, E. R. - 69 years
Willetts, Mrs. Sarah
Wolcott, Mrs. Louisa - 64 years

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