1900 — April 7, Heavy rain, Austin (McDonald) Dam Failure and Flooding, Austin, TX–>24
— 50 El Paso Daily Herald, TX. “Fifty Dead at Austin.” 4-7-1900, p. 1. (Headline figure.)
—>40 El Paso Daily Herald, TX. “Fifty Dead at Austin.” 4-7-1900, p. 1. (Figure within article.)
–~36 Wikipedia. “Austin Dam failure.” 10-8-2017 edit. [Notes “killed several dozen people.”][1]
—>24 Blanchard.[2]
—>24 (Our number for “dozens.”) City of Austin, History of Flooding in Austin.
–~22 Galveston Daily News, TX. “Havoc in the Colorado Valley.” 4-9-1900, p. 1.[3]
— 18 Spencer, Jim. “First Austin Dam Collapse 110 Years Ago Today.” KXAN, 4-7-2010.
— 16 San Antonio Sunday Light, TX. “Austin’s Tale of Horror.” 4-8-1900, p. 1.[4]
— 8 Saxena and Sharma. Dams: Incidents and Accidents. 2005, p. 19.
Breakout of Dam Failure-related fatalities by locality:
–7-11 Austin dam powerhouse. San Antonio Sunday Light, TX. “Austin’s Tale of Horror.” 4-8-1900, 1.[5]
–John Base, 25.
–Walter Blossom (or Blossman), 17.
–Walter Bullian [possibly misnaming of Blossom/Blossman]
–Frank Fitzgerald
–Alfred Johnson, 10 (notes that Alfred and Waldo were sons of the Chief Engineer).
–Walter (or Waldo), Johnson, 12.
–Frank McKinley (or Kenney), 18. (Notes he went to powerhouse with Johnson boys.)[6]
–Dick Morris, 50.
–Joe Newman, 12.
–Frank Paggi [perhaps a misnaming of Frank Pingent/Pinget]
–Frank Pingent (or Pinget), 54.
— 8 Austin dam powerhouse. Galveston Daily News, TX. “Havoc in the Colorado Valley.” 4-9-1900, p. 1.
— 1 Austin, river bridge. Man in buggy washed away (Oswin La France, 26, a farmer).[7]
— 5 Austin area. House swept away with Italian family inside (husband, wife, 3 children).[8]
— 3 Austin area, just below the dam. Woman; 2 children; names “have not been ascertained.”[9]
— 7 Austin area (9 miles south), Paul Fisher’s place. Two black families (Howard & Dinson).[10]
— 2 Hornsby’s Bend, Travis County. Drowned; farmhand (Thomas Helsey), Joe Burns.[11]
— 1 Pell Ranch, just east of Austin. Drowning; Ben Harvey.[12]
Narrative Information
City of Austin: “The flood waters started from a two-day storm in the High Plains halfway between Lubbock and Amarillo. The stormwater filled the Colorado, the Brazos and the Guadalupe rivers, sending the torrent through unsuspecting cities like Austin and Bastrop. This flood will always be remembered as “The Day the Dam Broke.” McDonald Dam on the Colorado River broke up, sending a wall of water down the river which killed dozens of people, even whole families. The river peaked at 60′ high and a mile wide. The pride of Austin at the time, “Ben Hur,” the 181-foot long, triple-decker leisure steamboat, was also destroyed by the flood.” (City of Austin, History of Flooding.)
Spencer: “…The structure was build on a fault line that allowed water to seep. Silt had filled nearly half the lake by February 1900. And the dam’s design failed to accommodate the force that could be created by a large volume of water.
“All of this set up the dam for its fatal blow when a five-inch rain fell in the Austin area on April 6, 1900, along with heavy rains in the Hill Country. With no upstream dams to capture runoff, the Austin Dam was defenseless against the resulting flood wave, which one eyewitness estimated at 25 feet high and mile wide.
“At 11:20 a.m. on April 7, the floodwaters crested at 11 feet atop the dam before it disintegrated, with two 250-foot sections — almost half the dam – breaking away. The flood also damaged the power house, drowning five workers, and destroyed the Ben Hur [sidewheeler].
“In all, the flood drowned 18 people and destroyed 100 houses in Austin, at a total estimated loss of $1.4 million, in 1900 dollars.”
USGS (Taylor): “….The history of this dam is unique in one respect, and that is in the number of engineers connected with it. Early in 1892 Mr. Joseph P. Frizell resigned, it is asserted, by reason of the fact that he was hampered in his work by the city authorities. Other engineers resigned for similar causes, and at one time a contractor in charge was ordered to follow the instructions of a city official who was not an engineer. This peculiar method of conducting a great public work called forth severe criticisms from engineering journals.” [p. 11.]
“The failure or the dam to meet expectations and its failure structurally were due to–
(1) The lack of hydrographic knowledge, causing (a) an overestimate of the minimum flow, and (b) an underestimate of the effect of evaporation.
(2) The hampering of the engineers of construction.
(3) The ignoring of geologic formations.” [p. 12] ….
“Failure of the Dam.
“At Austin the Colorado emerges from a mountainous. Country which extends for a distance of over 200 miles in a northwesterly direction. The channel above Austin is for the most part a sinuous gorge held in by limestone mountains and hills. Austin is at the foot of a long range of mountains, 37,000 square miles of which afford a drainage area for Colorado River. The river is fed by the Perdinales, the Llano, the San Saba, the Concho, and the Pecan Bayou. The configuration of the country is such that the water runs off rapidly into streams.
“From 1 p. m. on April 6 to 4 a. m. on April 7 there was a rainfall of 5 inches at and in the vicinity of Austin, in a mountainous country and on ground already wet. In addition to this, tremendous rains fell all along the Colorado and its tributaries from Austin as far up as Llano, a distance of over 100 miles. The river rose rapidly, and by 10 a. m. on Saturday, April 7, it was apparent that the dam would be called upon to withstand the biggest flood since water first wetted its crest on May 16, 1893. At that hour the water level of the lake was more than 10 feet above the crest of the dam and it was rising nearly 2 feet an hour. The greatest previous flood height occurred at 9 p. m. on June 7, 1899, when the lake level was 9.8 feet above the crest of the dam….
“At 11.20 a. m. on April 7, when the lake level had reached a height of 11.07 feet above the crest of the dam, the dam gave way…about 300 feet from the east end of the dam….” [pp. 41-42]
“It is almost certain that the dam failed by sliding. It seems that at a point 300 to 400 feet from the east end the limestone upon which the dam rested was of a friable nature. Mr. Frizell realized this, and it was stated to be a part of his plan, had he continued in charge of the work, to reinforce the bottom of the river just below the dam by a cement foundation about 100 feet wide by 600 feet long; it was also contrary to his purpose to have the water of the tailrace run along the toe of the dam….” [p. 45]
Newspapers
April 7: “Austin, Tex., April 7, noon. — One of the most appalling calamities that has ever occurred in Texas was the breaking of the great dam near this city to-day and the drowning of forty or more people.
“The dam was a piece of mechanical engineering that it was believed would withstand any flood, and even when the waters of the Colorado began to swell during the great rain of yesterday no fears were felt that the solid mass of masonry would go down.
“But, to the alarm and consternation of our citizens a cry rang through the streets this morning, ‘The dam is in danger,’ and everyone trembled over the prospect.
“Lake McDonald, an artificial lake covering scores of square miles, was created by the dam and the idea of the waters confined in the lake sweeping over the city recalled the horrors of Johnstown.
“Homes and Stock Washed Away By the Flood.
“Special Dispatch too the Herald. Austin, Texas, April 7. — There is immense excitement over the breaking of the big dam. We are in the center of a tremendous flood. The iron bridges are in danger. Houses and stock have been washed away.
“The great dam was built in 1893. It was situated about three miles above the city on the Colorado river and was one of the greatest engineering works in the country. It was sixty-nine feet high and twenty-eight feet thick at the base of the slope on the lowest side narrowing towards the top to about eight feet broad on both sides. The top was covered with four feet of Texas granite. It was 1100 feet long.
“The lake formed by it was twenty-five miles long. A large steamer known as the Ben Hur plied on it.
“The dam was built to furnish water and electric power and the electric plant located at Austin was one of the first in the south. It was a common thing to see six feet of water flowing over its crest and sometimes even more.
“Terror Stricken People Flying Before the Unchained Waters.
“….Power houses are washed away and six engineers are drowned. The bodies of the victims have been recovered.
“Many people were on the opposite side of the dam taking kodak pictures when the break occurred. They are all drowned. Hundreds of houses have been washed away, and the loss will go into the millions. There are fifty dead at least. So far, ten dead bodies have been recovered….The rise in the river amounts to eleven feet and was caused by another cloud burst this morning. It was the most violent storm of the kind on record.” (El Paso Daily Herald, TX. “Fifty Dead at Austin.” 4-7-1900, p. 1.)
Sources
City of Austin. History of Flooding in Austin. Accessed 11-19-2008 at: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/watershed/floodhistory.htm
El Paso Daily Herald, TX. “Fifty Dead at Austin By the Bursting of the Great Granite Dam This Morning.” 4-7-1900, p. 1. Accessed 11-22-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/el-paso-daily-herald-apr-07-1900-p-1/
Galveston Daily News, TX. “Havoc in the Colorado Valley.” 4-9-1900, p. 1. Accessed 12-23-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/galveston-daily-news-apr-09-1900-p-1/
Galveston Daily News, TX. “News From The Flood,” 4-10-1900, p. 1. Accessed 12-23-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/galveston-daily-news-apr-10-1900-p-1/
San Antonio Sunday Light, TX. “Austin’s Tale of Horror.” 4-8-1900, p. 1. Accessed 12-23-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/san-antonio-light-apr-08-1900-p-1/
Saxena, K. R. and V. M. Sharma. Dams: Incidents and Accidents. London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005.
Spencer, Jim. “First Austin Dam Collapse 110 Years Ago Today.” KXAN, 4-7-2010. Accessed 12-22-2017 at: http://kxan.com/blog/2010/04/07/tom-miller-dam-turns-70/
United States Geological Survey (Thomas U. Taylor), Department of the Interior. Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers of the United States Geological Survey No. 40. The Austin Dam. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1900, 72 pages. Accessed 12-23-2017 at: https://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/0040/report.pdf
[1] The only reference is link to the University of Texas at Austin “Virtual Landscapes of Texas” which allows one to open the USGS (Taylor) document we cite below. We have read this document and fail to find a reference to the number of fatalities.
[2] No source citied conclusively answers question of how many people died. We choose to go with the City of Austin estimate of “dozens” which we translate into at least 24 for purposes of a tally — assuming that “dozens” must be at least two dozen. The largest number of fatalities we have been able to put together from papers at the time which noted specific deaths (more or less), totals to twenty-two. Numerous newspapers, however, speculated that the loss of life downstream, particularly of Mexicans and Blacks along the river, must have been large, given that there was no warning and a very large volume of water released at once.
[3] Article notes nineteen people known or thought to be drowned, in addition to victims at the power house, all of whose bodies had been recovered except for the boy John Kenney — further in article notes that “eight persons drowned at the power house…” San Antonio Sunday Light of April 8. (Thus twenty-seven.) However, the next day the Galveston Daily News reports that the two Hornsby’s Bend farm-hands and two boys out fishing, all thought dead, returned alive and well “after the waters subsided.” The paper also reported that Oswin La France was not drowned after all — ha disappeared from view “and was given up for drowned, but he clung to the house and climbed upon it, and after a thrilling ride of ten miles lodged in a tree, and has returned home much fatigued from nervousness and exposure.” (Galveston Daily News. “News From The Flood,” 4-10-1900, p. 1.)
[4] The sixteen are reported as “known to have been lost.” Another thirty were thought to have been killed.
[5] Lists eleven names toward top of article. In the same column below, notes seven names with ages.
[6] Last of the powerhouse bodies recovered (10th). Galveston Daily News. “News From The Flood,” 4-10-1900, p. 1.
[7] Galveston Daily News, TX. “Havoc in the Colorado Valley.” 4-9-1900, p. 1. Notes: “The man who was drowned in the presence of hundreds of spectators at the river bridge yesterday by having his buggy washed away and then climbing a telephone pole only to reach a safe place and have a moment’s rest when a house struck the pole and broke it, dashing its occupant into the water…is known to have been Oswin La France, a farmer 26 years of age.”
[8] Galveston Daily News, TX. “Havoc in the Colorado Valley.” 4-9-1900, p. 1. Notes: “Among the houses swept away was one occupied by an Italian family, a man, his wife and three children. All are missing, and several people report having seen the bodies of a woman and three children floating down the river.”
[9] Galveston Daily News, TX. “Havoc in the Colorado Valley.” 4-9-1900, p. 1 Notes “they were strangers.”
[10] Galveston Daily News, TX. “Havoc in the Colorado Valley.” 4-9-1900, p. 1
[11] Galveston Daily News, TX. “Havoc in the Colorado Valley.” 4-9-1900, p. 1. Notes Henry Haaverd, 11, and James Farnes, 16, missing. Had been fishing “and have been included among the victims.”
[12] Galveston Daily News, TX. “Havoc in the Colorado Valley.” 4-9-1900, p. 1