Today is the 100th anniversary of the March 30th, 1912 flood in Valley Nebraska. This year we are experiencing one of the warmest and driest months of March on record and drought is more to be feared than flooding. But last year was a different story – mountain snowpack and torrents of rain in Montana caused the Missouri River to flood. The Valley flood a century ago is another reminder that March is indeed a lion
and a lamb. The winter of 1912 must have been much colder and longer than the one we have just experienced, because the large amount of ice still on the rivers formed ice jams and caused a very destructive flood.
Valley is located between the Platte and the Elkhorn rivers. The confluence of the two rivers is several miles south of the town. This excerpt from the
Norfolk weekly News-Journal, March 29, 1912, Page 8 describes conditions at Valley on Tuesday, March 26.
“A. T. Hutchinson of the A. L. Kulian Co. , returned last night from Valley , Neb. , where he attended a directors meeting of a seed house of which he is a director. Mr. Hutchinson reports that much fear is entertained at Valley and Waterloo over the flood stage of the Platte river which is thirty feet high at the narrowed channel at the Burlington bridge at Fremont. The ice is thirty-six inches thick and a gorge is forming. Blasting has been going on for a week , but it is not believed that this will save the lowlands arount Valley from a flood. The Elkhorn river, says Mr. Hutchinson, is in good shape and he can see no danger of a flood in this vicinity.”
Valley Public Library has contributed a collection of photographs to Nebraska Memories depicting the town both before and after the flood. This 1910 photo of
Reid’s Hotel at the corner of Front and Pine streets shows a substantial two-story building flanked by trees and paved sidewalks.
Two years later,
this March 30, 1912 photo of the same corner shows that the flooding may have been even worse than Mr. Hutchinson’s comments to the newspaper suggested. Water is lapping at the foot of the front porch of the hotel and several people are standing on it surveying the flooded street. There must have been a lot of damage to the ground floor of the hotel and all the buildings on those streets. The photo description indicates that flood waters from the Platte and Elkhorn rivers merged and some areas were covered in four feet of muddy water.
This photo taken in April 1912 shows damage to a
wagon road near the railroad tracks. The road has eroded away and looks like a “gorge” such as Mr. Hutch
inson told about. As the flood waters recede, undermined utility poles are falling over. The pole with the repair man perched on it looks like it could topple into the water at any moment–not a place I would have wanted to be! According to the photo description damages to the area were estimated at $40,000 – a hefty sum a century ago.
And how would you like to be the poor people living in
these homes? More photographs of the
Valley flood of 1912 can be viewed in Nebraska Memories.
Visit
Nebraska Memories to search for or browse through many more historical images digitized from photographs, negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials.
Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. NebraskaMemories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see
http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information, or contact
Beth Goble, Government Information Services Director, or
Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director.
