Stranded Upstairs In The Flood

Did you know? Huntingdon County's 1937 sesquicentennial book listed the St. Patrick's Day Flood of March 17, 1936, among the great floods of the Juniata Valley. With heavy snows melting in the mountains and unusually heavy rainfall, the book says, the waters rose for two days, carrying houses, bridges and barns to destruction.

Myer Souders shared this photograph in reply to a post about the 1936 flood. He says his grandfather took it looking east from their home at the end of Mount Vernon Avenue. His grandparents and their four children, he says, were stranded upstairs in the last house at the end of the avenue, across from where Copyrite is now.

He identifies the building as the Huntingdon and Broad Top Mountain Railroad's freight warehouse, and he says it stood about where the flagpole is in the Patterson Agency's parking lot. The 1937 book's own pictures of the flood include one of the railroad's freight station.

Checked 2026-10-30 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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