The 1936 Flood, 80 Years Later
Heavy snow and rain in March 1936 triggered the worst flood in Wheeling’s history. The river crested at a record 55.2 feet, 80 years ago today on March 19th, and floodwater inundated the Island, much of South and Centre Wheeling and even the downtown streets as afar east as Chapline. The Suspension Bridge and Steel Bridge were closed, and the Market Auditorium was converted to a refuge shelter and makeshift hospital. Utilities were shut down, supplies cut off, and disease threatened. More than 20,000 people were driven from their homes and 16 people lost their lives.
A Flood Story: Front’s Floating Grocery Store
The Front family of South Wheeling watched the rising waters of the ’36 flood as they slowly swallowed Wood Street, filling the basement of the family’s grocery store before erupting through the drain in the basement of the Front house next door. In 1936, the floodwaters rose to just a foot below the sill of the second story windows.
“I remember so many times from other floods,” Joe Front said, “you used Clorox and Lysol to disinfect while the water receded. The family raised 11 kids that lived, and there were ten of us at home, and everybody helped. And everything we had, we moved. We moved everything upstairs. You scrubbed and cleaned and, after a drying period, life went on.”
His father Vincent had the foresight, perhaps from his military training, to prepare for the worst. When he built the store, he included a door and staircase leading to upstairs rooms where products could be easily moved to keep them safe from floodwaters. He also kept a sixteen-foot rowboat in the back yard behind the store. It was Joe’s job, after he was old enough, to take care of the rowboat.
“When the ’36 flood was coming,” Joe said, “and the water reached inside the house, we moved everything upstairs and in the store everything was carried upstairs. The groceries were moved and we just waited on the water.”
The water came. And kept coming. The Fronts had to vacate the house. They climbed out a back bedroom window, over a laundry room roof and into the rowboat. Joe’s older brothers took them by boat to a cousin’s house (the Chmiel family) on 43rd and Wood Streets, one block away near Frederick’s Grocery and Wenzel’s Meat Packing Company. His brothers took Joseph for a boat ride the next day.
“Our boat was about one foot below the second floor window sills at the house when we rowed by,” Joe recalled, “and we had about 12 feet of water in the street. Officially, the river crested at 55.2 feet on March 19, 1936.”
After the 1936 flood receded (and during all subsequent floods) United Dairy and Continental Bakery continued to make deliveries to Front’s Grocery, stopping their trucks at water’s edge near the railroad tracks in a lumberyard on 44th and McColloch streets. The Front brothers met them in the rowboat. The brothers took the milk and bread up and down the flooded streets to sell to the families stranded in the upper floors of their houses—Front’s floating grocery store. [From The Wheeling Family, Volume 2]
The Pietras Family
The devastating 1936 flood was particularly hard on the Pietras family of South Wheeling. When the water rose, the family took a rowboat to Wetzel Street to a path that ran from Polaski Field up the hill to Mozart. From the rowboat they could see packs of rats fleeing the rising water.
The family lugged baskets filled with their belongings up the hill. A woman who had 12 children of her own invited them to stay with her. “They welcomed anyone that was walking up the hill.” Mary Pietras recalled. “They threw all these feather comforters on the floor…One room was for girls and women and one room was for men and boys. Everybody slept wall to wall…on the floor.”
When the flood waters finally receded, Mary remembered seeing a number of ruined player pianos lining the streets—reminders of just how quickly and aggressively the flood waters had risen. Residents had tried in vain to move the heavy pianos to higher ground only to abandon their efforts as the relentless floodwater surged. Looting was common and many women lost the copper kettles used to boil clothing. [From The Wheeling Family, Volume 1]
The Flood Supplement
When flood waters forced Wheeling News-Register staff to abandon equipment for higher ground at their offices on 1500 Main Street, intrepid reporters used a small proof press to hand-set a crude but effective “flood supplement.”
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Images of a Disaster
This astonishing gallery of photographs of the 1936 flood is from the archival collections of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.
This second gallery of photographs is from the Harry Briese Collection at the Ohio County Public Library Archives.
WWVA and the Flood
From the morning of March 17th, when news of the rising waters first arrived, radio station WWVA broadcast live for 92 1/2 consecutive hours, keeping the Valley informed through the cresting of the river on the afternoon of the 19th and continued giving updates of the aftermath as the water receded in the days following.
A 1936 Wheeling Flood Souvenir booklet was later published by the West Virginia Broadcasting Corp., documenting the disastrous flood and the efforts made by WWVA to keep the people of the Upper Ohio Valley informed and to keep their spirits up.
Looking back on this flood from today’s perspective, it is difficult to imagine the devastation that occurred here in Wheeling, 80 years ago. It is also a testament to the resilience and toughness of its people that the the Nail City rebounded from this tragic event to stage one of it’s most elaborate celebrations just a few months after the flood waters of the “Big One” receded.
Thank you for sharing such an interesting history. Seems that everything about Wheeling is so interesting.
Thanks for sharing! My parents,grandparents,and other family would often talk about the flood. They are no longer with us, and this allows me to share with my children and grandchildren the events of what happened before dams were built.
we had dams in 1936, they would handle only 4 barges so a towboat would take 4 barges thru, return to lower level get 4 more and tie them to upper 4 and continue this until he she had her entire tow thru the locks. Our back yard was to the river bank & the 36 flood came within 4 feet of flooding our home. The western end of Tiltonsville was flooded because of a huge sewer than ran to the river under the railroad tracks to allow a small stream from the hill to enter the river so the river backed up thru the sewer and flooded the homes wes of the RR tracks to the hill.
Is there a map of the flooding that shows areas of Wheeling that were flooded and the height of the water?