PENNSYLVANIA Austin Disaster Ruins Dam 1911 RPPC real photo postcard PA

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PENNSYLVANIA Austin Disaster Ruins Dam 1911 RPPC real photo postcard PA:
$49.95

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This is a vintage REAL PHOTO postcard, postally unused, dated 1911

A postally unused card may have writing on the reverse

Image shows a view of, RUINS OF THE AUSTIN DAM, PENNSYLVANIA PA - DESTROYED SEPT 30, 1911

Austin Dam was a dam in the Freeman Run Valley, Potter County, Pennsylvania, which serviced the Bayless Pulp & Paper Mill. A failure of the dam in 1911 caused 78 deaths and approximately $10 million damage.

In 1900 the Bayless Paper company chose to construct a paper mill in the Freeman Run Valley and by 1909 the company realized that occasional dry seasons required the reserve water source. After finding a small earthen dam to be inadequate, the T. Chalkey Hatton firm built a large concrete dam across the valley. The dam was 50 feet (15 m) high and 550 feet (170 m) long and cost $86,000 to construct.

Within only a few months, problems were detected. The dam bowed more than 36 feet (11 m) under the pressure and the concrete started cracking. The bowing was alleviated by using dynamite to blast a 13-foot (4.0 m) space for the excess water to spill over. The cracking was claimed to be normal because of the drying cement.

On September 30, 1911, the dam failed and destroyed the Bayless Pulp & Paper Mill, as well as much of the town of Austin, Pennsylvania. The damage was approximately $10 million. It also resulted in the deaths of 78 people. The paper mill and dam were rebuilt but the papermill was lost in a later fire in 1933, and the new dam failed in 1942 with no loss of life.

There is currently no operating dam in the vicinity of Austin.

Card publisher/photographer CLARK\'S STUDIO, GALETON

The overall condition is fine or better. As grading is subjective, please look at scan for faults/defects. Any diamond grid pattern or red, green or other stripe effects on the right hand side of the card, are scanning flaws. They are not on the card.

HISTORY MATTERS!

Snapshots of the Past

The vogue of lithographed cards caught Eastman-Kodak\'s attention. They issued an affordable \"Folding Pocket Kodak\" camera around 1906. This allowed the mass public to take black & white photographs and have them printed directly onto paper with postcard backs. Various other models of Kodak \"postcard\" cameras followed igniting a real photo postcard era. These cameras shared two neat features: their negatives were postcard size (the major reason why so many of these images are so clear) and they had a small thin door on the rear of their bodies that, when lifted, enabled the photographer to write an identifing caption or comment on the negative itself with an attached metal scribe. This is the reason that so many of the earlier photo cards are \"one of a kind\".

Early on professional photographers capitalized on the new craze and themselves captured images that they printed on the processing papers that were being made available by a number of companies at the time. They advertised their ability to make as many copies as you liked from your negatives.

As the decades passed and new technologies developed, it became even more common for commercial photographers to mass-produce and market these real photo postcards, which reached their zenith in the 1940\'s.

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The postcard view is now highly sought after by many institutions and individuals, as it serves as a historical record of the past. Be it the view of a town main street, the local church, school, roadside attraction or the countryside, the post card mirrors the way our parents, grandparents and even we, once lived. Captured in these olden day images are views of people in the dress of the day, often at work, at play, at school or at church, offering us a glimpse back in time to a specific moment.

With the magic of a post card take a trip down memory lane!

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Buyer pays a reasonable combined s/h of 1-4 items = $1.50. I always try to ship within 24 hours of receiving payment. There is no sales tax.

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