The Portland daily press., 1889-06-05
JoHNsTowN TODAY.
A Mud Covered Plain, With No Trace
of the City.

Where, on Friday, Were Streets Lined
With Handsome Buildings and
Filled With Busy People, Is Now
Nothing but a Waste.
to the Sun says:
Standing now at the bridge. where the
vast whirlpool struggled for exit, the air is
heavy with smoke and foul with nameless
odors from mass of wreckage as high as
all of Battery Park, and narrowing up the
right side to as far as Wall street. The area
of the triangular space where the awful
whirlpool revolved, is said to be about four
square miles. The area Of the space covered
by this smoking mass is sixty acres. The
surface of this mass is now 10 feet below the
top of the bridge, and about 80 below the
point on the bluff where the surface of the
whirlpool lashed the banks. One ragged
mass, some distance above the bridge, rises
several feet above the general level, but
with that exception the surface of the debris
is level. 1t has burned off until it reached
the water, and is smouldering ON as the wa
ter gradually lowers. On the right bank, at
about where was the highest water level,
detachment of the Pittsburgh fire depart
ment is throwing two fitful streams of water
down into the smoke, with the idea of grad
ually extinguishing the fire. In the immen-
slty OF the disaster with which they combat
their feeble efforts seem like those of boys
with .squirt-guns dampening bonfire. About
the sixty acres OF burning debris, and to the
left of 1t from where 1t begins to narrow
toward Stony Creek Gap, is large area Of
level mud, with muddy streams wandering
about in 1t. This tract of mad comprises all
of the triangle except thin fringe of build
lngs along the bluff on the Pennsylvania
railroad. A considerable number of houses
STAND on the high ground ON the lower face
OF the central mountain and off to the right
into Stony Creek Gap. The fringe along the
Pennsylvania railroad is mostly of stores
and other large brick buildings that are COM
pletely wrecked, though not swept away.
The houses on the higher ground are un-
fade away by degrees or completeness In
their wreckage into the yellow level of the
huge tract over which the mighty whirlpool
swept. Off out of sight in stony Greek Gap,
are fringes of houses on either side of the
muddy fiat.
THE TOWN UTTERLY ANNIHILATED.
This fiat is peculiar thing. 1t Is level
and uninteresting as patch of waste ground.
Too poor to grow grass, there is nothing to
indicate that it had ever been anything else
than what it is. 1t is as clean Of debris and
wreckage as though there had never been a
building on it, In reality it wasthe central and
busiest part OF Johnst0wn. Buildings, both
dwellings and stores covered it thickly. Its
streets were paved, and its sidewalks Of sub
stantial stone. 1t had street car lines, gas
and electric lights, and all the other improve
ments of substantial city of 1900 or 10000
inhabitants. Iron bridges spanned the
CfrnQmc md 10 hli inns mar nf o.x1.c
tial character. Not a brick remains, not
stone nor stick Of timber in all this terri
tory. There are not even hummocks and
mounds to show where wreckage might be
covered with layer Of mud. They are not
there, they are Gone-every building, every
street, sidewalk and pavement the street
railways, and everything else that covered
the surface Of the earth has vanished as ut
terly as though it bad never been there. The
ground was swept as clean as though some
mighty scraper had been dragged over it
again and again. Not even the lines of the
streets can be even remotely traced
Il have visited Johnstown dozen times
year for long time," said business man
today. "and l know it thoroughly, but
haven't the least idea now Of what part of
It this is. | can't even tell the direction the
streets used to rum"
His bewilderment, is hardly greater than
that OF the citizens themselves. They wan
der about in the mud for hours trying to find
the spot where the house of some friend or
relative used to stand 1t takes whole fam
lily to locate the site of their friends house
with any reasonable certainty.
SIXTY ACRES OF BURNING DEBRIS.
Wandering over this muddy plain, one can
realize something of what must have been
the gigantic force of that vast whirlpool. 1t
pressed upon the town like some huge mill
stone, weighing tens of thousands of tons
and revolving with awful velocity, pounding
to powder everything beneath. But the con-
ceptlon OF the power of that horrible eddy
OF the flood must remain feeble until that 60
acres Of burning debris is inspected. 1t
seems from a little distance like any other
mass Of wreckage, though vastly longer than
any ever before seen in this country. 1t
must have been many times more tremen-
dous when 1t was heaped up 20 feet higher
oyer its whole area and before the fire lev
eled 1t off. But neither then nor now can
the full terror of the flood that piled it
there be adequately realized until trip
across parts where the fire has been extin-
guished shows the manner in which the stuff
composing 1t is packed together. 1t Is not a
heap of broken timbers lying loosely thrown
together in all directions. 1t is solid mass.
The boards and timbers which made up the
frame buildings are laid together as closely
as sticks Of wood in pile-more closely, for
they are welded into one another until each
stick is as solidly fixed in place as though all
were one. A curious thing Is that wherever
there are few boards together they are
edge up, and never standing on end or fiat.
The terrible force of the whirlpool that
ground four square miles of buildings into
this sixty acres of wreckage left no oppor-
tunity for gaps or holes between pieces in
the river. Everything was packed together
as solidly as though by sledge hammer
blows.
This is Johnstown and its immediate vi
cinity as nearly as words can paint 1t. 1t is
single feature, one section out of fifteen
miles of horror that stretches through this
once lovely valley of the Allegheny. What
is true of Johnstown is true of Conemaugh is
true of every town for miles up and down.
The desOation of one town may differ from
the desolation in others as one death NAV
differ from another; but it is desolation and
death verywhere-desolatio so complete.
so relentless, so dreadful that it is absolutely
beyond the conception of men who have not
seen it-death in forms more varied more
painful and more horrible than they ever
were devised by the most atrocious torture
of the Inquisition. Many have been burned
to death and many have been drowned. but
few have been called upon to die with the
water surging about their faces while fire
burned their limbs. death that scores suf-
fered after the flood heaped them up against
the bridge here.