Johnstown Flood NMem Landscape: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Johnstown Flood National Memorial
Killion J and Friday D. 2026. Johnstown Flood NMem Landscape: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Johnstown Flood National Memorial. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 300144. National Park Service. NPS Northeast Regional Office, Boston, Massachusetts / CRIS-CL Database
The Johnstown Flood National Memorial (NMem) is located in southwestern Cambria County, which is situated in south-central Pennsylvania approximately 82 miles east of Pittsburgh and 131 miles west of Harrisburg. The park was authorized as a unit of the National Park Service (NPS) in 1964 to commemorate the tragic Johnstown Flood of May 31, 1889. The park straddles the South Fork of the Little Conemaugh River, which was dammed in 1853 to supply water to a canal in Johnstown, 12 miles downstream. The dam created what was, at the time it was built, one of the largest artificial lakes in the nation, more than two miles long and nearly a mile wide in some places. The dam failed in 1862 and lay broken and abandoned until it was repaired in 1879-1881 by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a group of wealthy and prominent businessmen from Pittsburgh. The dam’s impoundment, named Lake Conemaugh, served as the club’s exclusive resort until the dam broke in May 1889 and the resulting flood killed 2,209 people in Johnstown and other villages along the river. The 178-acre park preserves the remains of the South Fork Dam, which consists of two trapezoidal-shaped earthen and rock abutments cloaked in grasses and trees separated by an opening over 400 feet in length. Traces of the club’s carriage road extend across the top of the abutments to overlooks where visitors can view the dam’s breach, the river, and the former empty lakebed that stretches upstream from the dam and filled with a patchwork of grasses and wetlands. Trails also cross the dam’s spillway on the north abutment side, a rock cut now filled with tall grasses, and pass through the bottom of the breach on the south abutment side, where the river flows past the stone and timber ruins of the dam’s original sluice culvert and valve control tower. On a hillside meadow overlooking the dam and lakebed is the Lake View Farm and the Lake View House, the former farmstead and rehabilitated home of Elias Unger, the club’s president at the time of the disaster, as well as a reconstructed spring house. Other historic resources are located in two discontinuous parcels about one mile south of the dam in the village of St. Michael. They include the clubhouse, double cottage, and two cottages associated with the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. The park’s visitor center, built in 1988-1989, is located at the Lake View Farm and resembles the appearance of the old Unger barn. Here, visitors can view exhibits, watch a film about the flood, and contemplate the panoramic views of the dam and lakebed. The park also includes a picnic area, several parking lots, and a maintenance facility, but they do not significantly detract from the park’s historic setting. However, the active railroad line through the lakebed and breach, traffic on Lake Road between the dam and the Lake View Farm, and noise and views associated with the adjacent US Highway 219 bridge are distracting. From 1969 to 2012, the park welcomed 4,282,029 recreational visitors. Yearly visitation was lowest in 1969 with 19,700 visitors and highest during the centennial anniversary year of the flood (1989) when 333,283 visitors came to the park. Since that time yearly visitation has ranged between 100,000 and 160,000 people per year. Visitation occurs primarily during warmer months (April through October) and drops off in winter.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Killion, Jeffrey; Friday, Dorothy
- Date of Issue
- 2026
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- JOFL , NER
- Keywords
- Agricultural Field, Architecture, Auditorium, Automobile, Barn, Cabin), Camp, Campground/Picnic Area, Canals, Clubhouse (Social/Garden), Creating Social Institutions and Movements, Dam – Earthen, Degradation of Natural Environment, Developing the American Economy, Emergency Aid And Health Care, Entertainment – Recreation, etc), Exhibit, Expressing Cultural Values, Family Duplex, Forest, General Recreation, Gothic Revival (1830-1915), Handicapped Trail, Historic Site, Industrial Innovations., Industrial Towns, Interpretive Landscape, Interpretive Trail, Johnstown Flood National Memorial, Lake Conemaugh, Leisure-Passive (Park), Livestock, Lodge (Inn, Lounge), Meadow, Mining (Coal, Oil, Overlook, Picnic Shelter, Public Works, Queen Anne-Eastlake (1880-1900), Railroads and Railyards, Restaurant (Bar, RR Trackage, Salt Peter, Shipping and Transportation by Water, Single Family House, Social and Humanitarian Movements, Social History, South Fork Dam, South Fork Dam Abutments, South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, The Industrial Revolution, The Mining Frontier, Trail Bridge, Transforming the Environment, Transportation by Land and Air, View, Water Storage Facility, Ways of Life, Western Reservoir, Wetland, Woodlot/Forest (Managed)