Out of the blue some weeks ago, on
March 21 (2018)—105 years to the day after the horrific Good Friday windstorm
decimated wireline communications and set up Ohio and the Midwest for much
greater destruction without warning two days later, on Easter Sunday, March 23,
1913 (see “The First Punch”)—I received a brief email message from one
Elaine Luck:
I just shared a picture postcard of
John Bell from my personal postcard collection in the Ohio Vintage Postcard
Group and would like permission to share a link to your online article: “Our
National Calamity” with the Group. Also if you like, since a lot of our members
collect postcards from the 1913 Flood, I would be happy to tell our members
about your book The Great Dayton Flood of
1913, Arcadia Publishing, 2008. If you are on facebook, please take a look
at our Group. I am very impressed with your work
and invite you to join us.
Pleasantly surprised, I replied:
Thank you for your kind words. I trust
you mean the story of John Bell in “Heroism of the ‘Hello Girls’”? More information about what John Bell
actually, physically did is in one of the very early posts “The Governor’s Ear.”
It dawned on me then that people in
the Ohio Vintage Postcards Group might have other picture postcards depicting
the 1913 flood around Ohio—and that they might be seeking more information
about the individual scenes photographed. So, with Elaine’s encouragement, I
posted an invitation to the group, inviting them to contact me
“if you would like me to delve into the background of
particular postcards you may have.”
Some of the resulting detective
sleuthing ended up uncovering big surprises. Jil Loewit
posted an image of a fire over the flood, asking, “I would like more info about
this postcard please.”
 |
This RPCC, uploaded by Jil
Loewit, depicts a scene
that was faked a century before PhotoShop! |
After 3-4 hours of sleuthing, I’m
pretty confident in stating that the scene in this image never happened – or at
least, not in the way depicted. For a fact, fires from gas explosions broke out
in Dayton, and for a fact people used cables in rescues (see “High Wire Horror”) – but this view of both happening in one
scene is almost surely a pre-Photoshop doctored image. What initially suggested
that was the fact that I already possessed a thumbnail image I found years ago
that varies in details (see below).
Note how the image is cropped
differently and the smoke billows higher into the sky and the colors differ.
But today I also found what appears to
be the original photo of the scene in Marshall Everett’s 1913 instant book Tragic Story of America’s Greatest Disaster.
Now, these instant disaster books are problematic in their own way (see
“Profiting from Pain”), but in this case the photo reveals how the
postcard is a doctored image. Even though the photo (from the copy of the book
I own) highlights a cable rescue, no boat of figures is shown using the cable.
Note how the grouping of people at
left is nearer and smaller. Most importantly, there is no burning building in
the background because the street has a sight-line all the way to the horizon,
where some figures are standing atop some wreckage. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen
other variants on this scene as well!
Jil also posted another image that
puzzled her. She asked: “Can you please tell me who
these men were? Is one of them Patterson?”
By ‘Patterson,’ she was referring to
John H. Patterson, founder and head of National Cash Register (NCR), Dayton’s
largest employer (locally nicknamed “the Cash”); thousands flooded out of their
homes climbed to the hilltop corporation to safety—a rescue story that
instantly went viral around the nation, and that ultimately rescued Patterson
himself from doing time in Federal prison. I replied:
None
of these men is John H. Patterson, who was 69, slight, vigorous, with a bushy
white moustache (see “The Villain Who Stole the Flood,” third photo down – Patterson is the
older gentleman in the center, wearing a dark coat). It’s barely possible, however, that the
middle figure on the rooftop could be Patterson’s right-hand man, Edward A.
Deeds, who succeeded him as head of NCR – a good photo of both Patterson and
Deeds is at the Dayton Metro Library’s Flickr site.
Jil
Loewit also posted a picture postcard of people being rescued in a
flat-bottomed boat, noting, “Dayton Flood of 1913. Happened this week 105
years ago!”
She
added a modern photo of a museum exhibit, writing, “Here is a reproduction of
what those boats looked like. I assume none of them survived. This photo was
taken at Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio. They have a whole building
dedicated to the Dayton Flood of 1913. The man in the photo lost his life while
rescuing others.”
Those
flat-bottomed boats were likely the most significant thing Patterson did
through NCR, as they saved thousands of lives. Their story started around 6:45
AM on Tuesday, March 25, 1913, after Dayton had been deluged with 48 hours of
record rainfall since Easter Sunday. Patterson and a group of executives climbed
to the roof of the NCR building to survey the swollen Miami River, whose level they
saw was dangerously nearing the tops of its containing levees.
At that moment,
Patterson predicted great disaster to Dayton and famously stated, “I now
declare NCR out of commission, and I proclaim the Citizen’s Relief
Association!” and he began barking out orders to make preparations. Just hours
later, the levees burst, sending walls of water through the streets of downtown
Dayton.
Among
Patterson’s orders barked out was a command to NCR’s carpenters to start
building as many rescue boats as possible. Working night and day and turning
out several per hour, the NCR carpenters ultimately constructed nearly 300 flat-bottomed
boats. They had a shallow draft and were very stable, allowing half a dozen
people at a time to be rowed to safety.
Re
the replica in the Carillon Museum and Jil’s speculation about no surviving
originals: I’m pretty sure that at least one of the actual boats may still exist.
In 2007, when I was in Dayton doing photo research for my book The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 (Arcadia, 2008), I spent several days poring
through flood photos at the NCR archives preserved at Dayton History. At that time, local historian Curt
Dalton (author of several books on the 1913 flood) showed the surviving boat to
me where it stood against a wall. What struck me was how, even though the
rather battered craft had been roughly cleaned for storage, small patches of
flood mud still seemed to be visible.
 |
Walter Jung: “Third Street East, After the Flood and Fires,
March 25, 1913, Dayton Ohio - unused real photo postcard.” Comment from Elaine Luck: “I've never before seen a 1913 flood card showing the aftermath. Great Card!” |
Beyond Dayton
But
the 1913 flood did not stop at Dayton’s city limits. Neither did postcard
photographers. Worse hit than Dayton in terms of flood deaths per capita
population was Hamilton (Butler County) farther down the Great Miami River.
 |
This flood scene of downtown Hamilton, a postcard uploaded to Ohio
Vintage Postcards by Greg Eyler, could easily be mistaken for downtown Dayton
because of the similarity of the building architecture and globe street lamps. Note
Hamilton’s partially submerged Butler County Soldiers, Sailors, and Pioneers Monument at the end of the street
|
The
official death toll in both cities was about 100, but Hamilton had less than a
third of Dayton’s population; death tolls everywhere were widely underestimated
(see “‘Death Rode Ruthless’”); and a tally by long-time Hamilton historian Jim Blount indicates the
death toll in Hamilton might have been closer to 300).
Greg
Eyler uploaded a real picture postcard (RPPC) of Hamilton taken on the second
day of the deluge, March 26, 1913 (above). He wrote:
Downtown’s
High Street looking west at the intersection of High and Third Streets. Image
taken from the First National Bank Building. On the left side of this postcard
the Masonic Building and the Rentschler Building -which is located on the
southeast corner of High and Second Streets - are standing strong. In the next
block the front of the Butler County Courthouse is visible. Water is from 7 to
12 feet deep on the city’s main public thoroughfare, flowing about 20 miles an
hour. You will notice the water stands halfway up the lampposts. This
photograph was produced by Jacobi and Berry, a photography studio operating out
of 308 High Street. Information Source: Hamilton's
Disastrous Flood - 100 Photographic Views (a picture booklet), published by
C. S. Jacobi, First National Bank Building, Hamilton, Ohio. Copyright 1913
 |
Mark Kittinger uploaded a slightly different view taken a few days
later after the floodwaters had somewhat receded, writing, “Here's a RPPC I recently found showing
the aftermath of the 1913 flood in Hamilton, Ohio. A National Guardsman with
rifle can be seen standing in the rubble near the trolley tracks.” Note the torn-up pavement.
|
Piqua
and Troy north of Dayton, some 25 miles up the Great Miami River, also were
hammered a day earlier than Dayton. Elaine Luck uploaded an RPPC she described
as “Piqua
Ohio, Miami County, RR. Bridge, probably 1913 Flood.” Indeed, it is. It shows the Pennsylvania
Railroad Bridge, looking toward East Piqua, a residential area.
 |
Railroad officials tried to keep the bridge from being swept away by
parking heavy freight cars on it—a tactic used in many locales and that often worked.
In this case, work previously done on the railroad weakened the earthen
approach to the east. When that gave way, new concrete piers installed for a
replacement bridge diverted the river into the adjacent residential
area. After the flood, many residents filed lawsuits against the railroad. RPPC
from Elaine Luck.
|
But
the flood was also far vaster than the Miami Valley. It engulfed much of the entire
state of Ohio. Indeed, the 1913 flood and associated tornadoes devastated parts
of 15 states (one major focus of my research for 15 years has been to determine
its full extent and consequences). Postcards from cities around Ohio document the
extent of its widespread destruction.
One
of the most dramatic images was on this RPPC of Lods Street in Akron (Summit
County) along the Little Cuyahoga River, posted by Elaine Luck (at right). The
photo itself testifies to the sheer force of the floodwaters through Akron,
some 200 miles northeast of Dayton. Moreover, the postcard was postmarked April
5, 1913. Now, the floodwaters had not receded most places until around March 28
or even later, indicating that photographers already had developed their film
or glass plates, printed postcards, and distributed them for sale in just days.
Interestingly,
that Akron postcard was addressed to a recipient in Seville (Medina County),
which itself also suffered during the flood, as shown in another postcard
Elaine posted (at left).
I
found way too many to mention in this one ONC post, but one I cannot resist, in
part to correct the record. This famous image of the freighter William Henry Mack destroying
Cleveland’s West Third Street Bridge (see “‘Clevelanders Responding Nobly’”) was turned into a RPPC:
The postcard’s caption is erroneous. The freighter itself destroyed
the bridge. The Mack broke away from
its moorings upriver and was swept downstream, getting wedged under the bridge;
the powerful turbulence of the Cuyhaoga River kept pitching the bow of the
freighter like a lever arm, in about four hours prying Cleveland’s West Third
Street Bridge off its supports and into the river. Credit: The Cleveland Memory Project
On
the Ohio Vintage Postcards Group, Robert Gardner marveled,
It
is almost unbelievable how many cities and towns in Ohio (maybe other states
also) that were flooded during the 1913 flood. The canal system was permanently
put out of commission from it. The post cards of the day are really the only
reminder of it. Thank god the computer wasn't invented yet or all the pictures
would be obsolete by now as they would have been stored in a format that no
modern computer could read.
 |
Elaine Luck uploaded this image of tumbled houses, identifying it as, “Columbus Ohio, Franklin County, 1913
Flood View, PU1913 with a message on back referring to the casualties.” To which David Fry commented: “These are
such surreal images. What these poor people had to endure.” More about Columbus is in "Wireless to the Rescue! Birth of Emergency Radio"
|
He
is absolutely right. Without much
effort, I found RPPCs of the 1913 flood from Ashtabula County to Portsmouth to a gold mine of 1913 flood
postcards in and around AuGlaize (Defiance County).
 |
| Antwerp (on the Maumee River near the Indiana border), from Elaine Luck |
Statewide disaster, indeed.
Altogether,
the Ohio Vintage Postcards Group generously posted some 30 or 40 RPPC images of
the 1913 flood and its aftermath, far more than I can mention and display in
this one blog post. But you can view them all, along with the full online
conversation and people’s comments, from this link—as well as e-meet Elaine Luck, the group’s administrator, and perhaps join and
upload RPPCs of your own! Let me know if you do!
 |
Dave Sapienza uploaded this image, noting: “1913 flood disaster,
Marietta Ohio.” To which Judnick Postcards commented, “Photos taken during a flood put the photographer at considerable risk. They are therefore much better than the aftermath shots.” |
P.S.
For 139 more postcard images of the 1913 flood, many from Ohio, see this major site
by Ray Thomas; his two pictorial overviews show thumbnails of all the
images that you can click to enlarge. Moreover, this month’s single ONC post
doesn’t begin to explore postcards from Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, and so
many other states also devastated by the 1913 tornadoes and flood. If you wish
to share your own Great Easter 1913 natural disaster images from states other
than Ohio, I’d love to hear from you.
Keep those cards and letters coming, folks!
©2018
Trudy E. Bell
Next
time: Desperate Medicine
Bell, Trudy
E., The Great Dayton Flood of 1913, Arcadia Publishing, 2008. Picture
book of nearly 200 images of the flood in Dayton, rescue efforts, recovery, and
the construction of the Miami Conservancy District dry dams for flood control,
including several pictures of Cox. (Author’s shameless marketing plug: Copies
are available directly from me for the cover price of $21.99 plus $4.00 shipping,
complete with inscription of your choice; for details, e-mail me), or order
from the publisher.
