History & local legend
Johnstown’s Pennsylvania Railroad Stone Bridge withstood the flood unleashed by the South Fork Dam’s failure on May 31, 1889. Its strength created another danger: buildings, trees and railway cars piled against the arches, trapping people in the wreckage. The debris then caught fire.
Survivors remembered cries from people and animals caught in the mass as the flames spread. Photographs taken afterward show the scale of the wreckage beneath and around the bridge.
A later ghost tradition says screams can still be heard near those arches. The authors of Haunted Pittsburgh included the account more than a century after the disaster.
Sources
- Thomas, Murray and Smith, Haunted Pittsburgh (2016), Johnstown Flood section of the published book excerpt, reports at the Stone Bridge
- Johnstown Flood Museum, Before Your Visit, the night of the fire and debris piled at the bridge
- Ernest Walter Histed, Debris at P.R.R. stone bridge, Johnstown Flood, 1889, Library of Congress
- HistoricBridges.org, Johnstown Stone Bridge engineering and coordinates
