The Washington critic., 1889-06-03

thousand feet above the city Of Johns;
town. AS explained by q young lady
in this city who spent last summer at
the club. house, Conemaugh Lake and
nearly all the surrounding land be-
longed to the club, which wa q close
corporation Of Pittsburg rich men,
about 100, and many of whom ore
Standard Oil millionaires. James Suy-
dam Of Pittsburg was president OF the
club last summer.
Although all the members were very
rich men, the club was not wealthy
organization, being in debt to q consid
cradle extent on account of improve
ments which 1t has recently made, and
it has all along been unlucky. Last
year was the most prosperous In the
history of the club; its house was full
and all the cottages for rent at Cone
maugh Lake were taken and II was
thought the troubles Of the organization
were at an end. But scarlet fever broke
out in the middle of the summer and
everybody left at once.
There was sixteen cottages at Cone
maugh Lake, belonging to members of
the club and clustered about the club
house, which was about quarter of q
mile from the fatal dam. The cottages
were all new, having been erected
within the past five or six years, elc-
gantly furnished and costing many
thousand dollars apiece. The club
house, which was three. story Queen
Anne structure, furnished with billiard
tables. piano and containing a large
dining.room and nearly two hundred
rooms for guests, cost over $50,000.
The cottagers took their meals at the
club and NOBODY was allowed in the
building or at the lake who was not u
member or introduced by a member.
The dam was originally built some
thirty years ago by the Pennsylvania
Canal Company, but never used by
them, and II was, perhaps, the largest
in the world, being eighty feet high,
nearly as thich at the base, 1000 feet
in length and twenty feet wide at the
top, across which ran the stage load to
| the club house. Some ten years ago
the South Fork Fishing and Hunting
Club was formed and it bought the
dam, which had been abandoned, pay.
| ing only small part of its cost. The
club had the structure examined by
competent engineers, and, while it never
was considered unsafe, they advised
that it be strengthened and reinforced
by buttresses Of new masonry at the
base. When this was done the water
was shut off and it took Two years for
the lake to. fill, although fed by couple
OF active running streams.
From time to time since then the dam
has been regularly examined by engi-
neers of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
and one of the leading members of the
club, Chester Albre, who sailed for Eu-
rope last week, competent civil-engi-
neer, also frequently examined the
structure. But nobody ever saw a
weakness in the dam, which was built
Of the heaviest kind of masonry.
The menace TO all the towns in the
valley of this vast body of water, held
back by single wall, was apparent to
all, and the question was frequently
asked "What II the dam should
burst?" only to be answered by the
statement that II was the strongest
structure of the kind in existence, and
equal to its work.
The overflow from Conemaugh Lake
ran through sluice on the left side of
the great dam, but il is not known that
the club ever kept a watchman to regu-
late 1t. The nearest building to this
sluice was the farm house of Colonel
! Unger, proprietor of the Monongahela
House, at Pittsburg, and this was only
about twenty yards distant from the
dam. 1t was occupied by farmers
through the winter, who must have
realized the danger when the water
began to rise. Now that. the lake has
disappeared, 1t is believed that the club
is ruined and that no. attempt will be
made to rebuild the dam, which would
entail enormous expense, even should
the inhabitants OF, the Conemaugh Val
ley consent TO such proceeding, which
is not likely. The clubhouse and its
surrounding cottages are left stranded
high and dry miles away from the
nearest running water, which is at the
bottom of the valley, once covered by
the,lake and 100 feet below.