The Tragic History of the Johnstown Flood and the role of Grandview Cemetery

This is part 1 of a series entitled “The Great Flood of 1889”

My husband and I heard from our neighbor that he walked daily in the cemetery near us. The cemetery has lots of hills and vistas. So, we went for a walk one Sunday. We walked for about an hour, and we really enjoyed the beauty and tranquility of the cemetery. The next day I decided to go back to the cemetery and take photos. We were experiencing heavy fog that day and the weather would make for some interesting photos. I explored the resting place of victims of the great Johnstown flood.

Grandview Cemetary was established in 1887 and overlooks the quaint town of Johnstown. The magnificent cemetery covers about 235 acres and has 70,000 graves. Grandview cemetery is best known as the burial place for the victims of the tragic Johnstown flood which occurred on May 31. 1899. Two thousand and two hundred and nine people lost their lives in the historic Johnstown flood. Twelve hundred of the victims are buried in Grandview including 777 which were never identified or claimed by family members. The remaining residents who lost their lives are buried in other cemeteries around Johnstown. Many of the town’s citizens drowned.

The 1889 Johnstown Flood was the deadliest civilian loss of life in the United States before the September 11, 2001 attacks. The flood killed 99 entire families, 400 children under the age of ten, 124 widowed women, and 198 widowed men. Johnstown Area Heritage Association 2024

Unknown plot where unidentified dead of the 1889 Johnstown flood rest. Five months after the flood waters receded, a new 20,000 square foot section of Grandview Cemetery was opened

The Johnstown Flood, sometimes referred to locally, as Great Flood of 1889, occurred on Friday, May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam, located on the south fork of the Little Conemaugh River, 14 miles (23 km) upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States. The dam ruptured after several days of extremely heavy rainfall, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equaled the average flow rate of the Mississippi River, the flood 2,208 people perished and accounted for US $17,000,000 (equivalent to about $550,000,000 in 2022) in damage. (Wikipedia)

The destructive waters swept through Johnstown at 4:07, destroying four square miles of the city in about ten minutes. Approximately 1600 homes and 280 businesses, including much of the Cambria Iron Company, were destroyed. Railroad cars and even locomotives were lifted, over-turned, and carried by the water; their tracks uprooted and twisted.

The “Monument of Tranquility” overlooks the Plot of the Unknown

2 responses to “The Tragic History of the Johnstown Flood and the role of Grandview Cemetery”

Anonymous

November 16, 2024 at 8:17 am

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Johnstown Part 2 – A Little Bit of Faith and Photography

January 15, 2025 at 10:34 pm

[…] Part one of this series The Tragic History of the Johnstown Flood and the role of Grandview Cemetery, I mentioned that I found the “Unknown Plot” of the unidentified victims of the 1889 […]

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A Little Bit of Faith and Photography