Johnstown, PA Summary

This southwestern Pennsylvania city of 28,100 residents, once an iron- and steel-producing center, occupies a deep valley in the Allegheny Mountains where Stony Creek, the Little Conemaugh, and the Connemaugh Rivers meet.

Since Swiss immigrant Joseph Johns settled here in 1793, the town has been both blessed and cursed by its waterways. They provided important transportation links for commerce and industry.

But four times the city has suffered devastating floods. The South Fork Dam, east of the city on the Conemaugh River, failed in 1862 and 1889. In the latter year, the infamous Johnstown Flood sent a wall of water a halfmile wide and about 75 feet high through the town, killing 2,209 people and causing millions of dollars worth of damage. Another flood swept through the town in 1936, killing 25 and causing about $40 million in damage. In 1977 yet another flood killed 85, and cost the city more than $300 million.

The Johnstown Flood Museum, at 304 Washington Street, has exhibits recalling the disaster of May 31, 1889. The 26-minute documentary film \”The Johnstown Flood,\” which won an Academy Award in 1989, plays hourly. A large 3-D relief map with sound effects and fiber-optic animation shows the path of the wall of water.

The visitor center at the Johnstown Flood National Memorial, at the site of the former South Fork Dam, has exhibits explaining the flood.

Johnstown is about 70 miles east of Pittsburgh by State Route 56, between US-22 and US-219. It has rail service plus regular commercial flights to and from Pittsburgh.