Oil City, Pennsylvania, USA
1926 - Ice Smashes Allegheny River Bridge Flood Advances on Oil City as Packs Shift.

Bulletin.
Oil City, Pa., March 21.-Flood waters are rapidly rising here. A flood stage of twenty-five feet and six inches of was reached by the Allegheny River late tonight and the water is still rising.

Franklin, Pa., March 21.-The Big Rock Bridge at Franklin, spanning the Allegheny River, collapsed tonight at 7 o’clock under the tremendous pressure of the ice jam which gave way at the 8th street Bridge one mile north of here only to form a new natural dam.

Twenty minutes before three spans of the bridge fell, two of them into the river and one across the Pennsylvania railroad tracks, a trolley car carrying fifteen or eighteen passengers, passed over the weakening structure.

Oil City, Pa., March 21.-(AP)-Ice, which had covered the Allegheny River here since Feb. 26, started downstream late this afternoon. The movement, however, was checked in half and hour, the ice piling up at the eastern end of the city, with the result that the lower parts of Oil City, along the river were flooded.

The Oil City power plant was put out of commission by the water but a switch was made to the Clarion river electric current. Water was pouring into the pump house at the city, water works, but emergency pumps were keeping it from the fires.

Plain Dealer
Cleveland, Ohio
March 22, 1926

Visit Oil City, Pennsylvania, USA
Discover the people who lived there, the places they visited and the stories they shared.