Johnstown is the largest city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 18,411 as of the 2020 census. Located 57 miles (92 km) east of Pittsburgh, it is the principal city of the Johnstown metropolitan area, which is located in Cambria County and had 133,472 residents in 2020. It is also part of the Johnstown–Somerset combined statistical area, which includes both Cambria and Somerset Counties.
The Johnstown Flood, sometimes referred to locally as Great Flood of 1889, occurred on Friday, May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam, located on the south fork of the Little Conemaugh River, 14 miles (23 km) upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States. The dam ruptured after several days of extremely heavy rainfall, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equaled the average flow rate of the Mississippi River, the flood killed 2,208 people and accounted for US$17,000,000 in damage.
The Johnstown Flood National Memorial is a unit of the United States National Park Service. Established in 1964 through legislation signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, it pays tribute to the thousands of victims of the Johnstown Flood, who were injured or killed on May 31, 1889 when the South Fork Dam ruptured.
The Conemaugh River is a 70-mile (110 km) tributary of the Kiskiminetas River in Westmoreland, Indiana, and Cambria counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The name means 'Otter Creek', originating from the Unami-Lenape language word kwənəmuxkw 'otter'.
The Little Conemaugh River is a tributary of the Conemaugh River, approximately 30 miles (48 km) long, in western Pennsylvania in the United States.
The Allegheny Portage Railroad was the first railroad constructed through the Allegheny Mountains in central Pennsylvania. It operated from 1834 to 1854 as the first transportation infrastructure through the gaps of the Allegheny that connected the midwest to the eastern seaboard across the barrier range of the Allegheny Front. Approximately 36 miles (58 km) long overall, both ends connected to the Pennsylvania Canal, and the system was primarily used as a portage railway, hauling river boats and barges over the divide between the Ohio and the Susquehanna Rivers. Today, the remains of the railroad are preserved within the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service.
The Johnstown Inclined Plane is a 896.5-foot (273.3 m) funicular in Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, U.S. The incline and its two stations connect the city of Johnstown, situated in a valley at the confluence of the Stonycreek and the Little Conemaugh rivers, to the borough of Westmont on Yoder Hill. The Johnstown Inclined Plane is billed as the "world's steepest vehicular inclined plane". It can carry automobiles and passengers, up or down a slope with a grade of 71.9%. The travel time between stations is 90 seconds.
The South Fork Dam was an earthenwork dam forming Lake Conemaugh, an artificial body of water near South Fork, Pennsylvania, United States. On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam failed catastrophically and 20 million tons of water from Lake Conemaugh burst through and raced 14 miles (23 km) downstream, causing the Johnstown Flood.
The Rolling Mill Mine was a drift portal coal mine in operation in Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, operating from approximately 1856 until 1931. It was originally owned by the Cambria Iron Company and was developed in the Westmont hillside across the Conemaugh River from the company's rolling mill. Its portal was near the confluence of the Stonycreek River and Little Conemaugh River. It supplied the bulk of the coal used in the iron and steel making taking place in the city, producing an average of 3,000 tons a day in 1902, and primarily employed recent immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe.
The Quemahoning Reservoir, also known to locals as The Que, is created by the Quemahoning Dam, located on Quemahoning Creek on the border of Quemahoning Township, Conemaugh Township, and Jenner Township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania just south of Hollsopple.
The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a Pennsylvania corporation that operated an exclusive and secretive retreat at a mountain lake near South Fork, Pennsylvania. Its members were more than 50 extremely wealthy industrialists and their families. Most were based in Pittsburgh, the center of steel and related industries.
The Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation, also known as J&L Steel or simply as J&L, was an American steel and iron manufacturer that operated from 1852 until 1968. The enterprise began as the American Iron Company, founded in 1852 by Bernard Lauth and Benjamin Franklin Jones, about 2.5 mi (4.0 km) south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. Lauth's interest was bought in 1854 by James Laughlin. The first firm to bear the name of Jones and Laughlin was organized in 1861, and headquartered at Third & Ross in downtown Pittsburgh.
The Phoenix Iron Works, located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was a manufacturer of iron and related products during the 19th century and early 20th century. Phoenix Iron Company was a major producer of cannon for the Union Army during the American Civil War. The company also produced the Phoenix column, an advance in construction material. Company facilities are a core component of the Phoenixville Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places site that was in 2006 recognized as a historic landmark by ASM International.
Daniel Johnson Morrell was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.
The Lehigh Canal is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in the Lehigh Valley and Northeastern regions of Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of 20 years beginning in 1818. The lower section spanned the distance between Easton and present-day Jim Thorpe. In Easton, the canal met the Pennsylvania Canal's Delaware Division and Morris Canals, which allowed anthracite coal and other goods to be transported further up the U.S. East Coast. At its height, the Lehigh Canal was 72 miles (116 km) long.
The Stone Bridge spans the Conemaugh River in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The bridge is a seven-arch stone railroad bridge located on the Norfolk Southern Railway's Pittsburgh Line, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1887–88. Its upstream face was reinforced with concrete in 1929.
The Inclined Plane Bridge is a 237-foot (72 m), Pennsylvania through truss bridge that spans Stonycreek River in Johnstown, Cambria County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It connects the city to the lower station of the Johnstown Inclined Plane. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and was documented by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) in 1997.
The Champion Bridge Company, formerly known as Champion Iron Bridge and Manufacturing Company, is a steel fabrication business based in Wilmington, Ohio, in the United States. It has been in business since the 1870s, and several of its works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Illinois Steel Company was an American steel producer with five plants in Illinois and Wisconsin. Founded through a consolidation in 1889, Illinois Steel grew to become the largest steel producer in the United States. In 1898, several other steel and transportation companies were merged into it to form the Federal Steel Company, itself merged into U.S. Steel in 1901.
The Johnstown flood of 1977 was a major flood which began on the night of July 19, 1977, when heavy rainfall caused widespread flash flooding in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, including the city of Johnstown and the Conemaugh Valley.
