A Lavish Club Resort That Destroyed a Town
In 1880, plutocrat Henry Clay Frick and a group of rich Pittsburghers bought the South Fork Dam, an earthen dam that formed an artificial Lake Conemaugh in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Originally built to service a canal system, the dam was abandoned when railroads superseded canals, and was sold to private interests. Frick and his fellows formed the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a private resort for the wealthy based around the dam’s lake and shoreline. The club opened in 1881, and its well-heeled members mingled in its clubhouse and their cottages around the lake as they enjoyed nature.
They modified the dam, and lowered it to accommodate a road. To ensure that that the lake never ran out of fish, a screen was placed in the spillway that allows controlled release of water from a dam. The screen did more than stop fish from leaving the dam: it also trapped debris that clogged the spillway. That was bad because when the dam was built, it had a system of pipes and valves to lower water levels in an emergency. That system had been sold as scrap metal, and never replaced. Between that and the clogged spillway, there was no way to release water in case of an emergency. Such an emergency occurred on May 31st, 1889, and killed thousands in what came to be known as the Johnstown Flood.
