Austin Dam

Not to be confused with Austin Dam failure.

Austin Dam
Remnants of Austin Dam in 2008.
Location	Keating Township, Potter County, near Austin, Pennsylvania
Opening date	December 1909
Demolition date	September 30, 1911
Operator(s)	Bayless Pulp & Paper Company
Dam and spillways
Impounds	Freeman Run
Height	50 feet (15 m)
Length	540 feet (160 m)
Reservoir
Creates	Austin Dam Pool
Total capacity	200,000,000 US gallons (760,000,000 L)
Austin Dam
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
File:Austin Dam 2163739414 2af8ec49ea o.jpg
School house after dam disaster
Location	PA 872, Austin, Pennsylvania
Coordinates
Area	1.3 acres (0.53 ha)
Built	1911
NRHP Reference #	86003570
Added to NRHP	January 15, 1987

Austin Dam was a dam in the Freeman Run Valley, Potter County, Pennsylvania, which serviced the Bayless Pulp & Paper Mill. A failure of the dam in 1911 caused significant destruction in the valley below.

History

In 1900, Bayless Paper chose to construct a paper mill in the Freeman Run Valley. By 1909, the company realized that occasional dry seasons required a more reliable water source. After finding a small earthen dam to be inadequate, the T. Chalkey Hatton firm built a large concrete dam across the valley. The dam was 50 feet (15 m) high, 540 feet (160 m) long and cost $86,000 to construct. It was designed to be thirty feet thick, but was built only twenty feet thick.

Within only a few months of its completion, problems were detected. The dam bowed more than 36 feet (11 m) under the pressure of the water it was holding and the concrete started cracking. The bowing was alleviated by using dynamite to blast a 13-foot (4.0 m) space for the excess water to spill over. The cracking was claimed to be normal because of the drying cement.

On September 30, 1911, the dam failed and destroyed the Bayless Pulp & Paper Mill as well as much of the town of Austin. The damage was approximately $10 million. It also resulted in the deaths of 78 people. A young girl named Mary Fran Simmons, a new immigrant from Galicia which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, warned many of the townspeople about the impending disaster with her extremely limited English, simply pointing and repeating, "Dam! Dam!" The paper mill and dam were subsequently rebuilt, but the mill was lost in a fire in 1933. The new dam failed in 1942 with no loss of life. The dam was not replaced after the second failure.

The ruins consist of a series of broken sections extending east to west across the Freeman Run Valley. There are five upright sections and two large and several smaller toppled sections. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

A documentary about the dam disaster, featuring narration by Willie Nelson, was created by Mansfield University of Pennsylvania professor Gale Largey in 1999. It includes interviews with five survivors along with original newsreel footage.

In 2011 Largey produced a book based upon over 150 news accounts from as far away as Hong Kong and Japan. Unique stories from the respective newspapers are featured as well as hundreds of original photos along with nine editorial cartoons that appeared in various newspapers.

The Dam Show

An eclectic music festival and colorful light show takes advantage of the natural amphitheater and historic significance of the dam ruins. The Potter County Fine Arts Council and the Austin Dam Memorial Association are key organizers in this event. Bands known to appear are Larry Herbstritt, The Slant, Redheaded Stepchild, and The Buddhahood.

External links

• Austin Dam from the Library of Congress at Flickr Commons