In keeping with Kyle’s Public Library’s last featured book about the Mississippi flood of 1927 that changed American society, this week’s column will focus on renowned historian David McCullough’s book “The Johnstown Flood,” which chronicles another of the country’s worst flood disasters: the 1889 flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
At the end of the nineteenth century America was in what is known as its Gilded Age. It was a time of rapid population and economic growth, but also one of political and corporate corruption coupled with a broad disparity between extreme wealth and extreme poverty.
During this period Johnstown, PA was a booming coal and steel town. Nestled in the mountains above it was the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive resort for wealthy tycoons. A shoddily constructed earthen dam was hastily built and poorly maintained to create a lake for the resort’s patrons. Despite repeated warnings about the dam’s safety, nothing was done.
