During the St. Patrick’s Day Flood of 1936, a deluge swept houses along the Kiskiminetas River off their foundations and down the river past Apollo, Vandergrift and Leechburg.
Tomorrow, Professor Pat Farabaugh of St. Francis University in Loretto is coming to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union Building & Museum at 317 N. Second St., Apollo.
He will present a program about the 1936 Flood in Johnstown as well as the other flooding in this region in March, 1936, including that which occurred in the Apollo area.
In 2021, he wrote a book called “Disastrous Floods and the Demise of Steel in Johnstown,” which will be available for sale and signing after the program.
“I believe local history is important,” Professor Farabaugh said on Friday.
He added that while national history is normally preserved, if local history societies don’t preserve the stories of communities, that history will not be passed on.
He added that he is grateful for the work of the Apollo Area Historical Society in keeping the stories of the community alive.
The event from 6:30-8 p.m. Sunday is being sponsored by the Apollo Area Historical Society (AAHS).
History of the Flood
According to the blog at heinzhistorycenter.org, an unusual combination of circumstances combined to create one of the Johnstown to Pittsburgh region’s worst natural disasters.
According to that website, nearly two inches of rain fell on March 16, 1936, which added to the 63 inches of snow that came throughout the winter, and warm temperatures melted the snow, swelling creek beds along the upper Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers.
On St. Patrick’s Day, the rising rivers reached the North Side and washed into the streets of Downtown Pittsburgh, wiping out historic businesses within hours, the website says.
River levels reached a peak of 46 feet at the Point, more than 20 feet over flood stage, leaving more than half of downtown businesses underwater, the Heinz History Center website adds.
By the time the waters receded a week later, the destruction and devastation were almost unfathomable — 62 dead in the region, over 500 injured, 135,000 homeless, and millions of dollars in property damage to homes, businesses, and industries, the Heinz History website says.
Efforts to find local people for this story who saw the St. Patrick’s Day Flood of 1936 were unsuccessful, as few people are still alive who saw the devastating deluge 86 years ago.
However, this reporter’s grandfather Bill Walker traveled from the family farm in Washington Township, Westmoreland County, with his five-year-old son, my father Jim Walker, to see the flood, along with crowds of people in Vandergrift watching it from above flood level, carrying my father on his shoulders.
And my mother’s family, the children and grandchild of John C. Owens Sr., who had a dairy farm on the Cemetery Hill in Allegheny Township overlooking Apollo, had vivid memories of the flood.
Houses had been swept off their foundations upstream, and a man riding the roof of his house down the Kiskiminetas River was grabbed by men on the Apollo Bridge and pulled up to safety.
Crowds had also formed in Apollo to watch the deluge.
One man who wanted to show off his new car was the last person to drive a vehicle over the Apollo Bridge before more houses crashed into the bridge, and the bridge was swept away at around 4:30 a.m. March 18, 1936.
When the bridge was carried off its piers, according to the Apollo Area Historical Society (AAHS), water surged into the backs of homes along Warren Avenue.
According to the AAHS website — apollopahistory.com — as a result of the flood, train service was discontinued on the Apollo side of the Kiskiminetas River, and the ferry and footbridge service in Pegtown along the river never resumed.
Until that time, Kiski Valley residents had a reliable form of public transportation in inexpensive trolleys that ran like clockwork every 15 minutes, which local residents could take all the way to Pittsburgh.
After the flood, according to the AAHS website, trolleys were replaced with Penn Transit Motor buses, and Griftlo Park, a popular amusement park and picnic venue where a number of companies held company picnics in the summer, only partially opened the next few years before closing completely.
Griftlo Park was located behind what is now the Dairy Queen in North Apollo.
In addition to a merry-go-round, the park offered a dance hall where chaperoned dances were held, and where a number of Kiski Valley residents met their spouses.
