Day #1. Johnstown

What you're looking at here is a valley. But it wasn't always a valley. Prior to May 31, 1889, it was a large private lake called Lake Conemaugh. It was owned by the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive club in the hills 14 miles above Johnstown, PA. that counted industrial barons such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, Philander Knox, Andrew Mellon, Daniel J. Morrell, and other movers and shakers of the day. (Complete membership list)

These men had the money to afford what was then the largest man-made lake in the country, but they didn't spend enough to maintain it.Here's where the dam used to be until the fateful night of May 31st when it gave way during a storm and a wall of water 40 feet high descended on Johnstown below. Twenty two hundred people died in minutes as much of the town was practically erased from the land.

The National Park Service has a pretty good site dedicated to the event here and the City of Johnstown has an even better one here.

I wish that I could say that America would never forget this tragedy, but sadly as a nation we have and many Americans today know nothing about it.