The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1889-06-13
DEVASTATION.
The Primary Cause of the Recent Great
Disaster at JOhnStOwn---Th Loss
of Life as Large as the Highest
Estimates.

Investigation shows conclusively that the
major part of whatever responsibility may be-
long to human agencies for the calamity that
has desolated the Conemaugh Valley must be
placed upon the South Fork Fishing and Hunt
ing Club, the association of wealthy Pittsburg
gentlemen that has for four or five years past
been endeavoring to establish sportsman's
paradise at Conemaugh Lake. When they
leased the lake they closed the waste gates,
through which all the water that had ever be-
fore accumulated in COnemaugh Lake had
found safe and speedy exit. 1t is measurably
certain that had the waste-gates been main
tanned the dam would never have given way.
They were removed, it is said because when
ever they were opened the game fish with
which the lake was being stocked would es-
cape. The fish have escaped all the same, and
the lives of human beings have gone with
them. These statements are made after q visit
to the spot by reliable newspaper correspond
ents and a minute inspection of the dam, aud
hearing various accounts of residents of the
neighbOrhood as to what was the condition of
the dam before the terrible disaster.
No description yet printed gives the slightest
hint rs to the character of the dam. There
was no massive masonry, nor any tremendous
exhibition of engineering skill in designing
the structure or putting it up. There was no
masonry at all, in fact, or any engineering
worthy of the name. The dam was simply a
gigantic heap of earth dumped across the
course of a mountain stream between two low
hills. 1T was faced on each side with layer of
heavy rough stone, loosely thrown together
and uncemented. This pile of earth was, as
has been stated, about rs feet high and 80 feet
thick at the BASE At the summit it was lev
eled off so as to be about 20 feet wide, and q
wagon road crossed it, 1t was an ordinary dirt
road, and there was no rock or masonry be-
meath it. The width of the stream at the bot
tom of the dam was about 30 feet. at the top
the dam was about 400 feet long 1t was built
straight across the gap, and neither face nor
back was curved. The slopes were about the
same on both face and back.
The dam was built many years ago to create
a reservoir for use as a feeder to the Pennsyl-
vania Canal. The builders placed in the 40
foot space at the bottom, where the creek ran,
five huge pipes, each as large as hogsbead.
These were covered by an arch of massive ma
sonry, and were arranged to be opened or closed
by levers in tower that was built in the GEN.
ter of the dam. These five big pipes were cal
culated to be large enough to carry off all sur
plus water that could ever be poured into the
lake above and which could not escape by the
regular exit, which was sluiceway around
one corner of the dam at a level of eight or 10
feet below the top. This sluceway was really
new stream the water passing off through it
finding its picturesquely winding course down
the hillside, and running with the stream again
some distance below the dam. The suiceway
and waste-gates never failed to do the work
for which they were designed, and there is no
reason to suppose that they would have failed
to do so at the present time and for the future
had they been maintained as the builders con-
templated.
When the PENNSYLVANIA Canal was aban-
doned the dam became useless, and was neg
lected. The tower in which the machinery for
managing the waste-gates was located is said
TO have fallen into ruin few years ago. The
lake was leased by the Pittsburg Sportsman's
Association. Engineer Fulton, of the Cambria
Iron Company, made an inspection of it and
pronounced it dangerous. The association set
| out, they declared, to improve and strengthen
it. They did cut off two feet from the top of
the dam, and may have strengthened it in
some respects; but either because the waste
gates were SO damaged that to repair them
would have been an expensive job, or, for the
other reason mentioned the fear that the fish
would escape the waste gates, every one who
lives near says the gates were permanently
stopped up. The present appearance of the
wreck of the dam indicates the truthfulness OF
the story. There are remnants of the waste
gate masonry, but there is no indication that
they have been of any practical use for a long
time.
Whatever may have been the indirect cause
of the giving way of the heap of dirt that
damned upper Conemaugh, the fearful power
of the mass of water which was the direct
cause of its yielding is evident all about the
place. In the center of the dam is gap clear
down to bed rock in the old bed of the stream,
and sloping raggedly upon each side to the top,
where it is at least 200 feet wide. Through
this huge gap can be seen a vast area of yell
lowish gravel and mud-a very deep basin in
the center back of the dam, rising at each side
in bluffs 80 feet high, and sloping more gradu-
ally backward away off until it curves to the
left and is cut off from view by point of land.
AT the further edge of the curve are the big
club house and number of cottages erected
for members of the club, gay bits of color in
the midst of masses of green trees. This mud
valley is not less than quarter of mile wide
at its narrowest point. 1t is generally much
wider, and is said to average mile and quar-
ter.
There would seem to have been enough
water to wash away Johnstown in the parts of
the huge basin that can be seen through the
gap in the dam, but the whole length of that
basin, as it winds irregularly back among the
hills, is three miles, and all the water in that
area of three miles by mile and a quarter
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