Marie Marvingt, France’s Fiancée of Danger

French aviator and athlete Marie Marvingt.
French aviator and athlete Marie Marvingt.

Marie Marvingt was one of the most versatile female athletes in history. Her long list of adventures seems impossible to believe: skier, mountaineer, balloonist, nurse, cyclist, aviator, journalist, inventor, the list goes on. She was the first woman to climb the highest peaks of the Alps. Marie won numerous prizes in swimming, cycling, skiing, skating, and bobsledding. She tried to participate in the Tour de France, but was refused due to her gender. Marie biked it anyway. She flew in World War I as a French combat pilot and served as a surgical nurse in WWII.

Marie Marvingt was simply a phenomenon, forging a path for women in athletics, aviation, and military service. Combining her careers as a surgical nurse and military aviator, she invented the concept of air rescue ambulances, and later promoted med-evac services around the world.  Who was this amazing woman most outside of France have never heard of?

Marie Félicie Élisabeth Marvingt was born in 1875 in Aurillac, France.  She became an exceptional athlete at a very young age. Marie’s father, Felix, was postmaster of Aurillac. Her father was already 48 when Marie was born. When Felix retired, the family lived modestly on his pension. A champion swimmer in his youth, he encouraged young Marie to excel in sports.  She followed Felix on his swims in the River Moselle and on treks in the French Alps. At just 5, she could swim over a kilometer. Once in school, she proved a bright student, so Felix saw no reason to restrict her participation in athletics.

Though she dressed fashionably and flirted with boys, Marie devoted herself to sports. At 15, she canoed nearly 400 km between Nancy and Koblenz. That same year, she trained with the Alphonse Rancy Circus, learning to do acrobatics on horseback!  While attending high school in Metz, she learned archery, riflery, tennis, golf, and track & field. While later studying medicine at the University of Nancy, she competed in sports, winning in swimming and track, and beating men in shooting. More passionate about sports than medicine, she stopped with a nursing license and supplemented her income as an adventure writer.

“Women do not do that,” was the wrong thing to say to Marie Marvingt.

Marie Marvingt in the French Alps
Marie Marvingt in the French Alps.

Her love of sports, and in particular its challenges, led her to achieve unimaginable feats.  She became one of the first women to compete in fencing. Marie was the first female to climb numerous peaks in the Alps including Dent du Géant and Mont Blanc. At age 31, she took up skiing. As a skier, she competed in cross-country and downhill events at a time when women rarely skied, let alone competed. As in her other endeavors, she proved that women belonged in any sport.

At the second Chamonix ski meet in 1908, she ran in the first cross country race for women, a 3 km sprint. While the French press covered the men’s races, reporters paid no attention to the women. She showed up in culottes, rather than a long skirt, winning the race and setting ski fashion forever. Marie Marvingt also won medals in downhill skiing, bobsledding, skating, and rifle shooting.

During the summer of 1908, Marie made cycling history.

Many women rode bicycles, but few entered races. Marie did, of course.  She won the Nancy-Bordeaux race (600 mi), Nancy-Milan race (350 mi) and Nancy-Toulouse race (560 mi). In 1908, the Tour de France denied her entry because of her gender.  So, at age 33, she cycled anyway and finished the entire course. Only a third of the male competitors managed to finish.

The race covered 2,800 miles over 14 stages, an average of 200 miles/day on dirt roads with single-speed bikes.  It was punishing even for the strongest male cyclists. She completed the same course as the men, starting a few minutes after them each day. She finished handily, while 76 of the 114 men dropped out.

Riding alone without the support of a team, she proving a woman was more than capable. This time, the press reported her unofficial performance as an athletic achievement for a woman.  She was so successful in sports, Marie was named in a 1914 anti-feminist book as setting a poor example for young women. This was because she did not participate in sports for entertainment, but rather displayed unladylike competitive fervor.

Marie Marvingt even took up ballooning in 1901.

She became the first woman to obtain a balloon pilot’s license. Marie won several competitions and set numerous records for balloon pilots (male or female).  She was the first woman to pilot a balloon over the English Channel and the North Sea in 1908.

Marie Marvingt at the controls of her aeroplane during WWI.
Marie Marvingt at the controls of her aeroplane during WWI.

A year later, at age 35, Marie Marvingt became only the 3rd woman licensed to fly an aeroplane.  Naturally, she quickly set distance and duration records here as well. Flying in the decade of the 1910’s was still notoriously dangerous, but she managed 900 consecutive flights without a single crash.

Women attempting aviation in that era were supported by wealthy families or husbands. Marie however was not married and had to work to support each of her adventures.  She became the holder of the first woman’s flying record – a 42 km, 53 min. flight. Newspapers around the world featured Marie’s aviation records. Her fame enabled her to earn money flying in exhibitions and giving speeches.

One of Marie’s greatest achievements was not in athletics.

It was rather in her efforts to utilize aeroplanes as air ambulances.  In 1910, Marie conceived the idea of combining her nursing and piloting skills to create an air ambulance service. She developed the medical air-evacuation concept and by 1912 had designed a practical aeroplane.  She organized conferences to promote the idea and ordered a specially designed Deperdussin.  It would carry a pilot and two stretchers. Unfortunately, the French aerial pioneer Deperdussin went bankrupt before it could be built.

Among Marie’s pilot friends was the dashing artillery officer Paul-Maurice Écheman, who was also an accomplished skier. The two were inseparable, constant companions in both the air and on mountains. She had finally found the love of her life.  Écheman was promoted to captain and put in charge of one of the first French Army airfields. He encouraged her to presented the med-evac idea to the Army. Unfortunately, as no war was ongoing at the time, the War Department was not interested. Écheman sadly perished in a solo crash in 1911.

To manage her grief, Marie continued to press on.

In 1913, she survived her first crash after crossing the North Sea.  The press dubbed her Le Fiancée du Danger (the Fiancée of Danger).  “My helmet was completely buried in the earth, my face bathed in blood. Crushed under the mass of my device, I was breathing with difficulty. Fortunately, with my left hand, I was able to dig the earth near my mouth to allow me to suck in a little air.”

When World War I broke out in 1914, Marvingt was determined to make her own unique contribution. She first went to work as a Red Cross surgical nurse. The French Army wouldn’t let her fly military missions, even with over 900 flights. So along with her nursing, she became a part-time flight instructor instead, training new French Army pilots.

In 1915, one of her hospital patients was an injured pilot.  She learned there was no replacement for him on a crucial bombing mission. Marie somehow talked her way into the cockpit and flew two bombing missions over airfields in German-occupied Frescaty. She had become the world’s first female combat pilot. The French army turned a blind eye to it. Officially, she was still just a nurse.

Unofficially, she only flew as a “scout” on reconnaissance flights. When she was wounded on a mission, that ended her air corps career.  Marshal Ferdinand Foch assigned her next as a combat nurse in the Italian alps, where troops were fighting the Austrians in 1916. It suited her perfectly. As a skier and alpinist, she engineered the evacuation of wounded soldiers from snowy mountain passes, and the skiing in of food and medical supplies. She spent most of 1917 at the Italian front, this time as both nurse and war correspondent.

After WWI, Marie continued to campaign tirelessly for her med-evac planes.

Traveling with French forces in the Sahara in 1923, she designed skis for med-evac airplanes to land on the sand.  Back in France in 1927, she found a metal shop that could forge aircraft-grade aluminum alloy skies. She tested them herself on both sand and snow.

By the early 1930’s, her flying ambulance idea was accepted and she held international conferences to promote the concept world-wide. She established the Captain Écheman Award for the best-equipped medical aircraft, and launched the first training course for med-evac nurses.

During World War II, at the age of 65, Marie returned as a Red Cross nurse during the Nazi occupation of France.  After the war, she was honored for her “unspecified classified actions” on behalf of the French Resistance!  With her flying, fighting, nursing (and spying), it’s no surprise that Marie Marvingt was decorated with more than 34 awards including the Légion d’Honneur (Chevalier 1935, Officier 1949), Croix de Guerre and Médaille de la Résistance.

Marie Marvingt riding a bicycle in Paris follow WWII.
Marie Marvingt riding a bicycle in Paris follow WWII.

Marvingt spent the rest of her life advocating her aerial ambulance service. She co-founded the Friends of Aviation Medicine. She lectured tirelessly. She created training courses for aerial nurses. She wrote documentaries on the use of aerial ambulances. In her spare time, whenever that was, she wrote and published poetry under the pseudonym Myriel.

On her 80th birthday, the woman who’d piloted balloons before the Wright Brothers, was given a ride in a supersonic Voodoo jet fighter and earned her helicopter pilot’s license. Though Marie was widely honored, in her late 80’s, she descended into near poverty, living off her pension.  She died in a hospice in Laxou in 1963, at the age of 88. All over France, there are countless streets, schools, gymnasia and flying clubs named after her. She was named to the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.

Marie Marvingt opened doors, broke barriers, and proved that women belong everywhere, including a military wartime cockpit. Her life is an inspiring testimony of female audacity, perseverance, and courage. She pushed society, showing that no challenge was insurmountable, and that women could truly excel in any field.

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Six Times History Repeated Itself

“Those who fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.” – Philosopher George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense, 1905.
Representation of History repeating itself
Representation of History repeating itself

Arguably, no truer words were ever written. For we humans have a terrible habit of not learning from our own mistakes, or those of others, for that matter. The past lessons of history are left to prior generations and too often forgotten, or even worse, ignored. For millennia of our human history, destructive campaigns were repeated, either though ignorance or hubris. There are sadly countless examples, varying in length and impact to consider. Here are six of the most memorable.

1 – The Rise and Fall of Empires
Maps of the Roman and Japanese Empires at their peaks.
Maps of the Roman and Japanese Empires at their peaks.

These once great empires of Earth had one thing in common, over-expansion. They grew so large, they stretched beyond the reach of their own rule. Emperors, Kings or Sultans, sometimes over several generations and centuries, continued imperial expansion, regardless of the risks or cost. The Roman Empire stretched from England to Africa to the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire spread from Turkey to North Africa to the Balkans. The Spanish Empire was truly global with control over northwest Africa and most of Latin America. The Japanese Empire swallowed China, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific in its pre-World War II expansion.

Over-expansion created difficulties in governing, economics, military rule and, most importantly, containing outside threats and wars. Did that stop any of them from continuous expansion via military conquests? NO. The Roman Empire ultimately faced the invading Goths and Huns in the 500’s. In the 19th century, the Spanish Empire faced multiple wars for independence from its many American colonies. The Ottoman Empire was carved up by the Allies following its 1918 loss in World War I, creating our current Middle Eastern countries. The Japanese Empire, fighting a war on multiple fronts, likewise surrendered its invaded territories at the end of World War II to China, Britain, and the U.S. in 1945. The British Empire would soon learn the same over-expansion lessons.

2 – The American Revolution and French Revolutions
Philadelphia's Independence Hall and Paris' Bastille Prison during their Revolutions.
Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and Paris’ Bastille Prison during their Revolutions.

Both the American and French Revolutions were sparked by decades of unfair representation of the common people, who finally had enough of it, and rose up. In the case of the Americans, they had been loyal British subjects for over 100 years. They slowly turned against English King George III in the early 1770’s. Repeated, unfair governing and taxation by the British Parliament ultimately lead to the Revolutionary War in 1775 and Declaration of Independence in 1776. It took 8 long years of war, however, to finish it. In 1783, the American Continental Army, under the command of General George Washington, defeated the British Redcoats and gained independence. This was in part thanks to Benjamin Franklin and his strategic negotiated alliance with the Kingdom of France.

The French Revolution followed the American Revolution’s enlightened ideals of equality and liberty. The Third Estate (bourgeoisie and poor commoners) revolted against King Louis XVI and the French military following years of costly wars, royal overspending, uneven taxation, and famine. The hungry people rose up against their king in 1889. An armed mob of commoners stormed and took the hated Bastille prison in Paris. They then marched on the Palace of Versailles, demanding the King return to Paris. They negotiated with the Estates General to form a new French Republic, just like the United States of America. In the end, The Great Terror resulted in the guillotining King Louis, his wife Queen Marie Antoinette and many of the French aristocracy.

3 – Napoleon’s and Hitler’s Failed Russian Invasions

Regardless of Russia’s point in history, whether an Imperial Empire or Communist stronghold, its vastness (from Ukraine to Siberia), has been both an intimidating foe and a tempting target. Two of Europe’s most power hungry rulers would learn the same hard lesson. By 1812, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had subjugating most of Europe through a series of “Coalition” wars with Prussia and Austria. Russia’s Tzar Alexander chose not to comply with Napoleon’s Continental System and its embargo of Great Britain. So Napoleon decided to invade Russia and expand his Empire yet again. It was an unmitigated disaster.

History Repeats Itself - Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler
History Repeats Itself – Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler

Begun in late June of 1812, the French Grand Armie of 600,000 invaded Russia. They managed to rapidly advance and capture Moscow by September. However, the harsh Russian winter soon arrived and Napoleon was forced to retreat. Due to hypothermia, poor supply lines, disease, starvation and the unrelenting Russian Army, he lost 500,000 men on the march back to Europe. Napoleon was ultimately defeated and exiled to the island of Elba in 1813.

During World War II, Germany’s Adolf Hitler likewise set his eyes on Russian expansion (then Communist Soviet Union). After invading Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Holland, Norway and France, the Nazi Army of 3 million men invaded the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa in late June 1941. Like the French Grand Armie, the German Army moved swiftly and neared Moscow by late September. By November however, the Russian winter dropped upon them like a glacier.

Just like Napoleon, Hitler had severely underestimated the Russian winter, proper supply chains, and the relentless Red Army. Though the Nazis would make substantial progress towards St. Petersburg and Stalingrad, the freezing winter caused them to halt. The eastern front war would continue for 4 more years with the Nazi Army slowly retreating back into Germany. The Red Army would ultimately advance and invade Berlin in May 1945. Hitler committed suicide in his bunker that same month.

4 – The American and Chinese Civil Wars
The U.S. Civil War and the Chinese Civil War
The U.S. Civil War and the Chinese Civil War.

The American and Chinese Civil Wars may not seem similar from the outside, but common roots exist between them. What does it take to no longer compromise and coexist, but rather turn to violence against each other? The U.S. War Between the States came about primarily due to the South’s perceived threat to its state’s rights, and very way of life. The industrialized, abolitionist North versus the agrarian, slavery-dependent South. Following the election of Abraham Lincoln, seven southern states seceded from the Union in early 1860, forming the Confederate States of America. The war began with the South’s attack on the Union-controlled Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor in April 1861. Four more southern states then seceded. Competing armies were formed and the first battle took place at Bull Run near Washington. It ending four bloody years later, when Confederate General Lee surrendered to Union General Grant in Appomattox, Virginia.

The Chinese Civil War also divided the country geographically and politically. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the Republic of China was formed. The Chinese Communist Party began in 1921, in opposition the the ruling Nationalist Party. Two very different social and political systems evolved that refused to work or live together. Nationalist President Chiang Kai-shek ordered the killing of Communists in Shanghai in 1927. The Communists responded with an uprising, resulting in a full blown Civil War. Young Communist leader Mao Zedong led a peasant revolt in Hunan. He eventually led the Red Army, declaring a separate Communist Republic of China in the north.

During World War II, Chinese Nationalists and Communists together fought the Japanese Empire under a “United Front.” After Japan’s surrender however, they turned on each other once again and fought for control. Communists controlled most of northwestern China and Manchuria. The Nationalists controlled southern China and the major cities. Civil War broke out again when Nationalist troops occupied Shenyang in Manchuria. Battles raged for three years as the Communist Red Army gradually pushed south and defeated the U.S.-backed Nationalists in 1949, forming the Peoples Republic of China, with Mao as Chairman.

5 – The Armenian and Jewish Genocides
Children of the Armenian Genocide and Jewish Holocaust.
Children of the Armenian Genocide and Jewish Holocaust.

Before the Nazi’s horrific Jewish Holocaust of World War II, there was the Turk’s Armenian Genocide of World War I. It is hard to fathom the human intentions behind genocide. Not just the killing, but the attempted extinction of an entire race of people. What dark calculations go through the minds of the planners and the perpetrators? From the spring of 1915 through the fall of 1916, as many as 1.2 million Armenian Christians died, either in massacres or from systematic exposure and starvation. The World War I Ottoman government was controlled by the so-called the Young Turks. Their goal was to purify Muslim Turkish dominance over the empire by exterminating the Armenian presence. Their propaganda painted them as Christian, Russian-leaning traitors.

It began with forced deportation of Armenians from their homeland in northeastern Anatolia to the Ottoman Empire’s southern deserts. There were no gas chambers then. The victims were either shot in village massacres by Turkish troops, or died during forced marches due to starvation, dehydration, exposure, or disease, en route to the deserts of northern Syria and Iraq. If they made it through the death marches alive, they were placed in concentration camps. The western nations knew of it, but did nothing. For decades after the war, western governments sadly declined to call it “genocide,” in order to stay on good terms with their Turkish allies.

Merely 20 years after the Armenians, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi leadership began plotting out their Final Solution to the Jewish Problem. Hitler had a clear and successful road map to follow in the Armenians. First, scapegoat a population as the cause of all the countries woes. Then build up fear and hatred towards their entire population. Next, confiscate their homes and business, then forced deportations in the name of racial purification. Once again, the world watched and did nothing. In some cases, countries like the United States restricted Jewish immigration with limited quotas. Finally for the Jews came isolation in Nazi concentration camps, where they were dehumanized. Last came the horrific gas chambers of the death camps, where 6 million Jews perished. The world was horrified when the Allies liberated the camps … yet genocide would occur again, in Rwanda in 1994.

6 – World War I and World War II
Soldiers from World War I and World War II
History Repeats Itself – Soldiers from World War I and World War II

This is the most common, sad example of history repeating itself. Just 20 years after the end of World War I, The Great War, The War to End All Wars in 1918, World War II erupted between the exact same countries. The spark for World War I was the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian teenager in Sarajevo in 1914. Europe was already polarized with shaky alliances and imperial posturing. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Russia mobilized its military in support of Serbia, so Germany declared war on Russia. Germany invaded Belgium, so Britain and France declared war on Germany. Three years later, after near stagnant trench warfare, that included mustard gas, the U.S. joined the war. This ultimately lead to Germany and Austria’s surrender under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Eleven million soldiers lost their lives.

Germany, humiliated by the strict terms of surrender and loss of territory, fell into an economic Depression with rampant inflation. This resentment by the German people allowed the Nationalist Socialist German Workers (Nazi Party) to form in 1920. It slowly gained in popularity under the charismatic leadership of one Adolf Hitler. When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Nazi Party began to remilitarize Germany in direct defiance of the Versailles Treaty. The Allies did nothing to stop them. In 1938, Hitler annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, and the Allies did nothing. In 1939, Hitler invaded neighboring Poland. Britain and France declared war against Germany and Austria, and World War II began. After five years of war, 25 million soldiers had lost their lives.

Why Does History Keep Repeating Itself?

There are countless more examples throughout our history – political, economic, social, religious and militarily. Several general reasons exist for these unfortunate recurring patterns.

Human Nature: History is ultimately driven by human behavior. Regardless of political, intellectual or technological advancements – human greed, ambition, hatred, fear, anger, ambivalence, distrust, and power remain constants.

Collective Memory: As time passes, the memories of a generation fade into distant narratives. This loss causes newer generations to forget, or ignore, past failures, and commit the same, often preventable mistakes.

Historical Cycles: Some theories suggest that history moves in predictable cycles or waves roughly every 80 years (about a generation) that alternate between eras of relative peace and stability, and those of severe crises and wars.

How can we prevent repeating our past mistakes as humans? Are we even capable of preventing them from happening? HISTORY has so many lessons to teach us, if we but listen – and learn.

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Times Beach – America’s Hazardous Waste Ghost Town

Superfund site Warning sign outside Times Beach, Missouri
Superfund Site Warning sign outside Times Beach, Missouri 1983

Along famed ROUTE 66 just south of St. Louis, lies one of Missouri’s newer state parks. But one with a very checkered past. It’s the former location of the town of Times Beach and an infamous dioxin hazardous waste site.

In the 1970s, the lower-middle class town on the Meramec River couldn’t afford to pave its 23 miles of dirt streets. It was plagued with constant dust clouds, kicked up by local cars and trucks. To solve the problem, in 1972, the city hired used oil waste hauler Russell Bliss to spray what was supposed to be just used engine oil on the dirt streets, at a cheap cost of only 6 cents a gallon.

Bliss said it would do the trick, cause he’d successfully sprayed his horse stables and other dirt ranch roads in the area. He also knew he’d make a profit, as he got the materials free from the companies that paid him to haul their wastes away. Bliss mixed 1 tank load of used engine oil with 6 tanks of waste liquid from a nearby chemical plant. It was a factory that manufactured the notorious defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

The liquid waste was tainted with toxic levels of TCDD (dioxin).

For 4 years, he was regular sight in Times Beach, Missouri.  Thirty-eight year old Bliss drove his Bliss Waste Oil tanker truck around “The Beach,” spraying his carcinogenic cocktail on the town’s dirt streets. Kids loved sliding around in Bliss’ slippery, purplish goo. And it worked too, gluing the dirt to the road for up to 10 months. No one gave the foul-smelling substance a second thought. That is, until horses and dogs at the ranches he had sprayed started dropping dead. Soon, the town’s people began to get sick as well.

What the city didn’t know is that Bliss hauled waste for the Independent Petrochemical Corporation (IPC), an industrial waste subcontractor of the Northeastern Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company (NEPACCO), which used a Syntex chemical plant in nearby Verona. The waste liquid contained levels of Dioxin (at the time the most potent cancer-causing agent made by man) that were  2,000 time higher than the Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War!

When 62 horses died in stables that Bliss had sprayed, the sick owners contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Centers for Disease Control (CDC). They began an investigation in 1974. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to visit Times Beach in 1982, taking soil samples and identified dangerously high levels of Dioxin in the soil. Russell Bliss was vilified by the press, town and state of Missouri. He claimed he was completely unaware that the wastes that IPC gave him contained any toxic chemicals.

Soon, panic spread as every illness and pet death in town was attributed to the toxic street spraying.

The controversy over what to do next sadly pitted townsfolk against one another. Residents felt betrayed and publicly criticized the U.S. EPA for not informing them of the danger sooner! Why did it take two years before the general public was informed?  The half-life of dioxin is 11 years, so the cancer, neurologic and reproductive risks were not going away anytime soon.

On December 4th, 1982, the Meramec River on the edge of town flooded 14 feet during heavy winter rains, spreading the road contamination throughout ALL the homes and buildings in the entire town of Times Beach. Shortly after Christmas Day, 1982, vans of U.S. EPA officials in white body suits and face respirators showed up on people’s lawns, telling them to evacuate their homes immediately.

Marilyn Leistner, the last Times Beach mayor said the message from the government was clear:

‘If you live in the community, you need to get out. And do not take anything with you. If you are outside of the community, do not come back!’

U.S. EPA warning to residents, December, 1982

The national media painted Times Beach, Missouri and the similar Love Canal in New York state as the poster children of corporate industrial greed and general toxic pollution in America. President Ronald Reagan formed a Dioxin Task Force to study the effects of the chemical on the small town. In early 1983, the U.S. EPA announced the entire town’s buyout, 830 properties in all, at a cost of $36 million dollars.

Within 2 years, the entire population of 2,242 residents had been moved. Only one elderly couple, life-long residents who refused to leave their home, were allowed to stay. The now ghost town of Times Beach was dis-incorporated by Missouri Governor John Ashcroft, calling it sad but necessary. The perimeter of the entire empty town was blockaded behind tall chain link fencing and dire warning signs.

One U.S. EPA official said to visit the silent, abandoned town was heart-wrenching.

Walking the vacant streets and into the empty houses, it was like people had just dashed out for the lives, and were never allowed to come back. There were still Christmas trees inside and holiday decorations hanging outside.  Food was rotting in refrigerators without electrical power and washed clothes still hung in closets.

Abandoned church in Times Beach Missouri
Abandoned church in Times Beach, Missouri, 1983.

For the residents who moved, the ordeal was far from over. They continued to worry about the long-term effects on their children’s health. Among Vietnam Vets, Dioxin used in Agent Orange has caused cancer, skin diseases, immune disorders, and birth defects. Sadly, some of the 800 families were shunned by neighboring Missouri communities, who wrongly feared contamination from their “contagious” residents.

Residents filed hundreds of lawsuits against Russell Bliss, IPC and Syntex. Though Bliss’ spraying was undoubtedly the source, his pleas of ignorance were ultimately believed by the courts and he was never convicted of any crime. As for NEPACCO and IPC, no laws were yet in effect that regulated the disposal of hazardous waste, so they too were cleared of guilt. NEPACCO went out of business in 1972.

For more than a decade, the stores and houses sat deserted behind barricades and large black-yellow warning signs. Washington politicians decided what to do with the mess left behind in Times Beach, Missouri. The massive clean-up operation first demolished all the houses and buried the rubble, including the foundations, under a huge, long mound of dirt.

In 1995, the government removed 265,000 tons of contaminated soil at a cost of $110 million.

An incinerator was built on the site of the town, which burned the hazardous waste for two years. After all the contaminated dirt was incinerated by the U.S. EPA, the site was turned over to the State of Missouri. Thankfully, an American Medical Association study could find no long-term health effects in the evacuated families … yet.  Survivors are still monitored for health concerns annually to this day.

Times Beach and New York’s Love Canal brought hazardous waste dumping and toxic pollution to national attention. The U.S. EPA cleaned up hundreds of other toxic waste sites for the next twenty years. Congress passed the Superfund Act in 1980 to address the clean-up of the worst of the worst 1,340 hazardous waste sites lurking in America.

Route 66 State Park's "Town Mound" of former,, buried Times Beach, Missouri
Route 66 State Park’s “Town Mound” of former,, buried Times Beach, Missouri

What became of Times Beach? The cleaned-up, former town was turned into a new park, the ROUTE 66 STATE PARK. The 419-acre park opened in 1999 and includes a historical museum of the town’s infamous past. Few visitors of the park realize that under a huge grassy mound of earth 4 football fields long lies the sad remains of Times Beach homes and its residents’ possessions. If you care to visit Times Beach and the Route 66 State Park, it is located just 17 miles southwest of St. Louis, right off Interstate 44 at Exit 266. Waste hauler Russell Bliss died in 2024 at the age of 90.

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The Donora Death Fog of 1948

Donora Death Fog of 1948 Pennsylvania
Donora Death Fog of 1948, Donora, Pennsylvania

In 1948, a little-remembered environmental disaster occurred in the U.S. that shocked the entire world.  It may sound like something from a Steven King horror novel, but it was the real thing. Over 7,000 townspeople fell ill and twenty-six lost their lives. How did this happen? The Donora Death Fog began innocently enough.

On Tuesday, October 26, 1948 the people of Donora, Pennsylvania woke to a blanket of smoke and fog filling their cold streets.  Fog was common there when cold Allegheny Mountain air hit the warm water from the Monongahela River that ran in an oxbow bend around the town.  Plus the town’s steel mill and zinc works factories ran three solid shifts. They belched out endless pillars of smoke, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

People went off to work that Tuesday morning, kids went off to school.  But the smog on the morning of October 26th turned out to be … different somehow. As the day wore on, the fog didn’t lift, as it usually did when the sun rose.  All the streetlights were still blazing at Noon!  Plus the smog became slowly thicker as the day progressed. Townsfolk began to gag and cough, tasting the vile pollution in their mouths.

‘The smog burned your throat, eyes and nose, but we thought it was just another day in Donora.’

Donora Death Fog survivor

Donora is a small U.S. town, about 27 miles south of Pittsburgh. It sits on a tight, horseshoe bend in the Monongahela River, in a deep mountain valley surrounded by steep Appalachian hillsides.  It was also the home of the US Steel Zinc Works AND American Steel & Wire Mill. A combined 30 smoke stacks lining the riverfront like a steampunk forest. The two factories employed most of the men in town as laborers.  Everyone else, in one way or another supported, or profited off, the two large mills.

Folks in Pennsylvania and Ohio steel towns were used to smog. This was three years after World War II. The GI’s were home and back to work in the mills and factories.  But memories of the Great Depression still lingered, and smog, for better or worse, meant prosperity and jobs. Smog meant men were working, bills were being paid, and families were fed. Sure, it was a daily nuisance. It stunted the growth of trees in the valley, mothers washed their curtains as frequently as towels, and it caused hacking coughs amongst the workers. But, that was the price you paid for a part of living the new American Dream, right?

The Donora smog continued to worsen as the week went one, getting thicker and thicker … and thicker for 5 straight days. Most residents hid in their homes except to go out to work. It darkening the valley like an industrial solar eclipse. That didn’t stop the Halloween parade on Friday though, when little kids in costumes walked the streets like real-life specters, coughing and hacking themselves in the foggy gloom.  Or the high school football game on Saturday, when no passes were thrown because receivers couldn’t see the ball in the air!

The smog was so thick the fans could barely see the football players on the field.

What the town didn’t know was that a layer of cold autumn air had trapped the two mills’ toxic soup of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and zinc/lead dust on the floor of their mountain valley.  It was a rare Atmospheric Inversion that stopped the air from circulating out of the town.  The dangerous combination of toxic smoke and weather would yield deadly effects. The thickening, poisonous air began causing uncontrollable hacking coughs and asthma-like symptoms in the townspeople.

Donora’s eight family doctors rushed from house to house and case to case. They ordered those having trouble breathing to abandon the town and head in any direction. This became harder and harder as driving visibility was reduced to just a few feet, even with headlights on. Firefighters carried oxygen tanks through the dark streets to help children and elderly citizens get from place to place. The police were deluged with desperate phone calls for oxygen and masks.

The ambulances could only creep through the smog at 5 mph, with one paramedic walking in front – to check if the road was clear of stuck cars, shouting back to the driver.  Driving soon became out of the question.  Firefighters were forced to abandon attempts to help their suffering citizens when they were unable to navigate their fire trucks IN MIDDAY!

“The smog was so bad I couldn’t see my own two feet!”

Donora Death Fog survivor

The mayor and town leaders begged the mills’ owners to shut down … but they flatly refused. It would cost too much money to halt production, even for a day. The first deaths began to occur four days in, on Friday. The doctors had made the small Donora Hotel an emergency clinic, because the small local hospital could not handle all the sick, coughing and gasping patients.

By Saturday, the three funeral homes quickly had more corpses than they could handle. The Community Center basement became a spare morgue when the undertakers were overwhelmed. Towns people listening to the local radio station were shocked to learn the toxic smog had now turned lethal!  Twenty of their fellow Donorans had died so far!  And half the town was getting sicker.

Donora, PA - US Steel Zinc Works, 1948
Donora, PA – smoke stacks of the U.S. Steel Zinc Works, 1948

On Sunday morning, October 30th, when church services had to be canceled, the mills’ owners finally ceased operation. It was arguably because most of their workers were out sick and the two large mills were half empty. The next day, on Halloween no less, wind and rain finally came and the smog finally began to dissipate, but not before leaving many Donorians with permanent lung damage.

Twenty-six townspeople would die in all.

All the dead had been 50 or over, some with heart or lung problems. 7,000 people had become violently ill, half the town’s population. While expressing sympathy for the victims, the mill owners disclaimed responsibility!  After all, they could not control the weather, could they? Nevertheless, the Donora Death Fog made national news across the U.S.

Over the next months, state and federal investigators descended on small Donora. They set up air monitoring sites and medical clinics in the valley.  U.S. Steel and American Wire insisted the weather was to blame, certainly not the mills that had been operating for decades. The two influential and powerful companies made sure the official report exonerated the plants. Most residents were outraged when investigators failed to blame the two mills.  Much like the nearby Johnstown, PA Flood victims, lawsuits were filed, and later settled, but without naming any blame.

‘It was murder! The owners of U.S. Steel should have gone to jail.’

Donora Death Fog survivor

Humans were not the only victims – all of the crops in the surrounding valley withered, as well as many backyard vegetable and flower gardens.  Many family pets would suffer the same fate as their owners. It became the worst air pollution disaster in US history. It let the U.S. public know that smog was more than just a nuisance, it could kill!

The two mills reopened the very next week. But the “Donora Death Fog,” was in all the national newspapers and made air pollution a new national concern. The next year, President Harry Truman called for the 1st national Air Pollution Conference, citing Donora, PA by name. A similar, larger disaster occurred in London, England in 1952, called The Great London Smog killing thousands. The U.S. Steel Zinc Works closed in 1957, the American Steel and Wire Mill a few years later.  The abandoned mills were eventually torn down and Donora became a classic Rust Belt town. Other industries came to town over the years and built on the riverfront sites.

Republican President Richard Nixon created the U.S .Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, leading to the passage of the The Clean Air Act the same year. Nonetheless, air pollution in eastern industrial cities and towns, like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, remained a problem for decades more.  Add the steel mills of Illinois, Ohio and Indiana and air pollution precipitated down upon the northeastern states as Acid Rain, in the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s, killing lake and river fish populations all the way from Lake Erie to New England and Canada.

Names of the 1948 Donora Death Fog victims.
Names of the 1948 Donora Death Fog victims.

Once the mills closed, the population of Donora dwindled to less than 6,000, with over one-third mill retirees. Some residents blame the government regulators for destroying jobs in their town, though arguably saving their family’s lives in the process. The Donora Death Fog is the pivotal moment leading to the slow adoption of clean air quality regulations in the U.S. years later in 1970.  Today, it almost sounds like a 1950’s science fiction movie.  But if you have never heard of Donora, PA you owe the victims and their families a debt of gratitude.  The Donora dead gave their lives, so many others would later live.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.
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The Mahanoy Plane – the Mother of all Inclined Railroads

The Mahanoy Plane inclined railroad, Frackville, PA
The Mahanoy Plane inclined railroad, Frackville, PA

In the Coal Mining Region of eastern Pennsylvania, Appalachian valleys from Harrisburg to Scranton contain prized veins of hard, black Anthracite coal.  From the Civil War to the 1940’s, coal was the undisputed King of Fuels in the United States and the world.  For Schuylkill County, there was one big problem, getting all that precious black coal, from 48 separate mines, up and over the long Broad Mountain that separated it from the southern parts of the state. From there, it would feed hungry steel mills and factories in places like Allentown, Reading and Philadelphia.  Their solution was to construct the Mahanoy Plane

The Coal Barons’ constructed a massive Inclined Railroad in the town of Frackville.

Clearing the forest and laying tracks up the mountain was the easy part.  Tons of power would be needed to hoist the heavy, laden coal cars up the steep mountainside, too steep for a locomotive to pull.  The vertical rise was a daunting 525 feet in elevation to the top of the ridge, 28 degrees inclination at its steepest.  So they installed the most powerful steam engines in the world (at the time) at the summit, at the very edge of Frackville. The 500 ton engines were part of a massive complex that would be known as The Mahanoy Plane after the valley far below.

The Plane was constructed during the Civil War in 1861, primarily by Italian immigrants, and paid for by the READING RAILROAD (of Monopoly fame).   It was a true Engineering Marvel with two 6,000 horsepower steam engines hoisting coal cars 2,500 feet up from the Mahanoy valley to Frackville at the top.  The engines held that “Most Powerful Engine” distinction for over 50 years, until surpassed by the large steam engines that moved the locks of the Panama Canal.

Cheap immigrant labor toiled and died in the hundreds of deep mines that dotted the Appalachian valleys of eastern Pennsylvania.  Immigrants were from Ireland, Poland, Russia, Italy, Lithuania, and Ukraine. It was an exhausting, thankless, dangerous life, long before the days of organized labor unions.  Men would come out of the mines each day with black faces and black lungs. They were paid not in dollars, but company currency, which they could then used to pay their rent for company owned houses, and buy food in company owned stores.

During its heyday, the Mahanoy Plane hoisted over 1.4 Billion, that’s with a B, tons of shiny, black coal up the steep slope of Broad Mountain.  Up to 900 railroad cars passed up and down the steep plane every single day, a trip that took a little under five minutes.  The main hoisting cables alone were made of 3 inch thick cast-steel that could pull 3 coal cars up at once.  The Mahanoy Plane was so complex it required a team of over 60 men to work it.

Sadly, the Mahanoy Plane shut it engines in 1932, due to other easier routes built out of the valley.

Mahanoy Plane Engine Room, Frackville, PA
Mahanoy Plane Engine Room, Frackville, PA

The owners had the mighty steam engines dismantled, sold the long cables for scrap, and demolished the historic buildings in the 1950s – what a loss.  Eventually, Mother Nature overtook the full length of the Mahanoy Plane site with a forest of slender white birch trees. Today, the famous site is all but forgotten … except for a few loyal locals who refuse to let its once famous memory die.  Currently, hikers can visit the heavily overgrown site at the north end of Frackville by following a path just beyond High Street.  You can inspect its thick, deep foundations, massive, three-story high stone trestles, and creepy underground, cave-like rooms.

The Mahanoy Plane provided coal for the westward expansion of the United States, fueling railroads from the Mississippi River to the coast of California.  Polish, Russian, Italian, German and Irish immigrants mined the coal that powered factories, steel mills, and locomotives across the entire growing nation.  That same coal powered the steam ships that carried American soldiers across the Atlantic during World War I in 1917. For 50 years, the Mahanoy Plane, in a small Pennsylvania mountain town, contained the largest steam engines in the world!

Mahanoy Plane Historical Marker, Frackville, PA
Mahanoy Plane Historical Marker, Frackville, PA

In 2007, the Pennsylvania Historical Commission installed a small Historical Marker along nearby highway 924, just outside of Frackville.  It gives a brief, 3 sentence description, stating at the end that ‘partial ruins remain nearby.‘  But that hardly seems sufficient for such a once legendary site.

Sadly, there are no Pennsylvania state plans to restore or even preserve the once famous historical site.  The forest has completely taken over and reclaimed the land.  To visit there in summertime, when the trees’ leaves are thick, you might trudge right past it, and miss the ruins completely.  Only in the cold of winter, with the trees bare of leaves, is the site fully revealed to the curious, along with a spectacular view of the Mahanoy valley below.  White wind turbines dot the mountaintop opposite Frackville.

The once mighty Mahanoy Plane, and the men who ran it, deserves far more remembrance than an overgrown plot of crumbling ruins and a sad, forgotten place in American history.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

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6 Forgotten Secrets of Michelangelo’s David

Michelangelo's David backside in Florence, Italy
Michelangelo’s David less seen backside in Florence, Italy

How much do you know about Michelangelo’s David? You have no doubt seen countless pictures of the famous naked statue on the internet, television or in books. You recognize the handsome, muscular nude male, standing with his feet apart, staring off into the distance. But did you know the statue was originally commissioned to sit atop the roof of an Italian cathedral? That the version standing outside Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio is actually just an inferior bronze replica? How about that Michelangelo was only 26 years old when he sculpted it?

The statue of David was commissioned in 1501 during the reign of the famous Medici ruler, Lorenzo the Magnificent.  The cathedral guild hired the up-and-coming artist to create a statue of King David to stand atop the roof the famous Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence/Firenze. Though quite young, Michelangelo Buonarroti, was already famous for sculpting The Pieta in Rome – the famous statue of Mary cradling the body of a crucified Jesus in her lap. He was provided a 6 ton rectangle of white Tuscan marble from the Carrara quarry that two prior sculptures, including the famous Donatello, had rejected as too flawed to use.  It had sat untouched for over 10 years.  Michelangelo however, saw beyond the flaws and took on the challenge.  David would not be life-sized, but rather 17 feet (5.2 meters) tall!

It took him two painstaking years to complete what Firenze dubbed ‘il Gigante’ (the Giant).

1) The marble stone sat in a small courtyard behind the Duomo cathedral, so he worked year round, outside in the rain, heat and cold.  Rarely stopping to eat, Michelangelo often slept on the spot, where he dropped from sheer exhaustion at day’s end. Rather than a robed & bearded King David, he chose instead a young man on the day that made him famous.  The day in the Book of Samuel when David was the only person to step forward and accept King Saul’s challenge for anyone to face down the Philistine giant, Goliath. A simple shepherd boy, naked yet toned, armed only with a rock, sling and fierce determination.

 2) Michelangelo dissected corpses to learn the intricacies of human muscles, and put that knowledge to great use. David stands with his legs apart in a fencing-like (or baseball pitcher) pose, left heel slightly raised, looking over his left shoulder at Goliath.  The sling is draped over the same shoulder, across his back to his clenched right hand where he conceals the small yet deadly stone. Though David at first appears relaxed, on closer examination one sees the tension in his legs, the glare in his eyes, the bulging veins in his hands. His head is slightly larger and out of proportion, so that when viewed from below it would appear a normal size.   His right hand, gripping the stone, is also slightly larger  – a nod to David’s nickname manu fortis.

When finally completed, the reviews in Tuscany were beyond positive, they were ecstatic!

David replica outside the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy
David replica outside the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

3) His benefactors indeed proclaimed in ‘Perfect!” Too perfect in fact to sit so far away atop the Duomo roof.  So a commission was formed, which included none other than an aging Leonardo da Vinci, to choose a ground level location somewhere in Florence.  Oh to be a fly on the wall, overhearing those conversations between Michelangelo and Leonardo. The chosen site was atop a pedestal outside the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria. It took 40 men, four nerve wracking days to slowly transport the 12,000 pound “Giant” through the narrow streets.  Even the orientation was taken into account, with David facing Rome, as if the Medici Giant was staring down the Pope himself.

4) Michelangelo’s David’s exposed manhood caused quite a bit of consternation when Britain’s Queen Victoria was presented a replica in London, in the 19th century, by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.  So much so that a plaster fig leaf was made and hung on his curly public hair so that the queen might not faint from the vapors in his naked masculine presence.  It was an amusing bit of history mimicked in a Simpson’s TV show episode a century later.  It’s also curious to note Michelangelo chose to not make David circumcised, which was of course the Jewish custom.

5) The perfect statue stood outdoors for over 350 years, exposed to the Italian elements – rain, sun, snow and pigeons. Only in 1873, over concerns that the weather was eroding the marble masterpiece, was it finally transferred indoors to the Galleria dell Accademia. David’s sling and the tree stump were originally gilded in gold, but has long since wore off over time.  In the Galleria, one of the toes on his left foot was once hammered off in 1991 by a zealous Italian spectator!  It was thankfully reattached. A bronze replica was put in the Palazzo Vecchio for the tourists (and Italian pigeons), to mark the spot it once stood.

The years have taken their toll on the great masterpiece, as micro-fractures have appeared from centuries of vibrations.

6)   Unfortunately, Michelangelo’s David is actually oriented the wrong way in the Galleria dell Accademia for the best public viewing.  As visitors approach down a long hallway, they see the often photographed angle facing his hips and chest. David almost looks relaxed.  But the view Michelangelo intended was facing him from the Right.  There you see the brave David as Goliath would have – eyes glaring, muscles tense, ready to load his sling for that fateful throw.  If you visit him in the Galleria, step down into the corridor on the right for the best view.

Michelangelo’s David’s face as Goliath would have seen it

Michelangelo’s fame grew beyond David and the Pieta when was he was next commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint the vaulted ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel in Rome.  That task, which is actually 52 separate frescoes, took him four long years to complete.  Michelangelo never married or had any children, leading to theories he may have been secretly gay.  He certainly had a keen appreciation for the male form.  He lived a solitary life, well known for his short temper and lack of personal hygiene.  Michelangelo lived to a ripe old age of 88, the aged and bearded figure often depicted in many of his portraits. He is buried in the Basilica Santa Croce in Florence.

Such artist perfection as the masterpiece of David is not just a piece of sculpture for the Renaissance or even Italy, but Michelangelo’s eternal gift to the entire world, and all its descendants.  If you are ever in Italy, a trip to Firenze is highly recommended. Skip the long tourist lines at the Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore and go instead to the Galleria dell Accademia and experience for yourself, THE GIANT in person.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.
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The Deadly 1900 Galveston Hurricane

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The 1900 Galveston Hurricane Memorial
The 1900 Galveston Hurricane Memorial, Galveston, TX

If you approached Galveston, Texas from the gulf in 1900, it looked like an American Venice. Barely 8 feet above sea level – hotels, mansions, and church steeples rose from the placid waters as if it were Atlantis itself.  Its long harbor and numerous warehouses made it a more important port than its inland cousin, Houston.  Over 1,000 steam ships docked at the harbor every year.  Its busy business district was dubbed the ‘Wall Street of the West.’  Over 37,000 souls crowded into the picturesque barrier island, linked to the mainland by no less than 3 railroad bridges.  The popular, flat beachfront boasted numerous hotels, restaurants and shops along its famous Midway. All that changed when the Category 4 Galveston Hurricane, the “1900 STORM,” arrived from the Gulf.

As far back as locals could remember, Galveston had been spared the arrival of any major hurricane, or ‘Cyclones’ as they called them back then.  Only two tropical storms had hit Texas in recent memory, but much farther south.  Galvestonians considered them freak incidents and that a major hurricane would NEVER breach the Florida Straits, let alone hit Texas. Why even the U.S. Weather Bureau agreed the shallow Gulf waters made it virtually immune to hurricanes. 

Talks of building a sea wall were discussed by city leaders, then tossed aside as sheer folly.  Why bother?  In the meantime, the bustling city continued to fill up and grow.  The protective dunes were destroyed and their sand used to fill in wetlands for new construction and even more souls on the island.

Saturday, September 8th, 1900 began with few hints of impending doom. 

Galveston Chief Meteorologist Isaac Cline
Galveston Chief Meteorologist Isaac Cline

The U.S. Weather Bureau knew a tropical storm had passed Cuba two day earlier, but thought it turned to the north and was heading for Florida.  In the days before satellites, eye witnesses and telegraphs had to suffice … and they were not enough.  Isaac Cline, Galveston’s chief meteorologist, went to the beach that morning and reported partly cloudy skies with only “unusually high swells in the gulf.”  There was not the brick-red dawn usually associated with foul weather. Other than the raising of a storm warning flag atop the weather bureau building downtown, there would be no call for evacuation.  By that time, it was too late anyway.

By the lunch hour, dark clouds had brought heavy rains.  They were fed by an unusually high tide, flooding all streets nearest the beach hip-deep in seawater. Fierce, crashing waves destroyed the beloved Midway and trolley tracks that ran parallel to the beach.  Some families began to pack their wagons with valuables and head to the center of the island. Others, believing it was just a bad storm, stayed put and moved to the upper floor of their homes.

By four o’clock, winds were blowing at hurricane strength, flipping slate shingles off roof tops, sending them flying through the air like scimitars.  Rising waters were already chest-deep in the streets.  Store front windows downtown were shattered by the winds. Families realized they had but two options now, risk wading downtown to slightly higher ground (a mere 8 feet above sea level), or ride out the storm in the upper floors of their wooden homes. Isaac Cline had watched his barometer drop all day to a record low and waded home to his own family. Schools, convents and hospitals became emergency shelters.

By 6 PM, what we today call a Category 4 Hurricane hit an unsuspecting Galveston.

A 15 FOOT STORM SURGE rose in a matter of minutes, flooding the island from beach to bay.  All the bridges leaving the island were destroyed. Two hours later, the Eye itself plowed over the city, punching it with 140 mile per hour winds.  In the dark of night, street after street of houses were crushed by the massive storm surge. Broken homes were lifted off their foundations. They crashed into the next street, only to repeat the cycle of destruction.  Residents who were not killed instantly were quite literally thrown into the heart of the cyclone’s dark swirling waters, to either survive clinging to wreckage, or die.

St. Mary's Orphan Asylum, Galveston, TX, 1900
St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum, Galveston, TX, 1900

St. Mary’s Orphanage sat on prime property, directly on the Gulf, just outside the city limits.  The Sisters of Charity gathered the terrified children into the upper floors to escape the rising storm surge.  They sang Mary, Queen of the Waves to pray and calm the orphans.  The sisters even tied themselves to the children with ropes so they’d not be separated if blown out into the storm.  Its two dormitories eventually collapsed with 90 young children and 10 nuns inside … only three teenage boys managed to survive.

By dawn, the killer storm has passed.  The dazed and lucky survivors crawled from the wreckage to find half their city flattened to rubble and littered with corpses.   Due to the large number of bodies washed out to sea, it will never be known exactly how many truly died in the Galveston Hurricane. 3,600 buildings were completely destroyed and up to 8,000 lives lost.  Isaac Cline managed to save his 3 daughters when their home collapsed, but lost his wife. The bodies of the dead were first loaded onto barges and dumped in the Gulf of Mexico, but the Gulf dumped them back on the beach the next day.  Funeral pyres became the only way to dispose of so many dead.

Galveston learned its lesson, oh yes, it certainly did.   

Galveston, Texas 1900 Hurricane damage
Galveston, Texas 1900 Hurricane damage

In the years following, the Gulf of Mexico sand was dredged and the entire city raised up 17 FEET. Then a massive, curved concrete seawall was constructed.  Galveston has since been hit many more times by tropical storms, most recently directs hits by Hurricane Alicia in 1983 and Hurricane Ike in September 2008.  Though given ample days to evacuate from Ike, over 100,000 residents chose to stay on the skinny barrier island and ride out the storm … just like their ancestors a hundred years earlier.

Given the uncertainty around global Climate Change, we can only assume Hurricane Ike will not be the last cyclone to attack the vulnerable Texas coast, and the city of Galveston.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.

Source: https://www.1900storm.com/

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The Forgotten Sultana Riverboat Disaster

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The Riverboat Sultana ablaze on the Mississippi River near Memphis
The Sultana Disaster on the Mississippi River near Memphis, TN, April 1865

More souls died on the Riverboat Sultana than the RMS Titanic.

The Sultana disaster is in fact, the worst maritime disaster in United States history with 1,860 lost. So why is it such a forgotten piece of American history, with just a few books written? Why no epic Hollywood films? Everyone remembers the Battle of Gettysburg, or the Fall of the Alamo, so why not the Sultana Disaster? A lot had to do with timing and how the U.S. Civil War ended. April 1865 was a very eventful month for both the United States and Confederate States of America.

General Robert E. Lee had surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox in Virginia on April 9th. After five bloody years, pitting brothers against brothers, the U.S. Civil War was finally over. Barely a week later, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14th while attending a performance at Ford Theater in Washington D.C. The manhunt for his assassin, the actor John Wilkes Booth, ended on April 26th. He was fatally shot by Union troops in a remote Maryland barn.

The very next day, April 27th, 1865 the riverboat exploded in the dead of night on the Mississippi River just north of Memphis, Tennessee. It sank with over 2,400 souls aboard. They were primarily haggard Union soldiers, prisoners of war happily returning home to the north. By comparison, 1,517 would die on the Titanic decades later in 1912.

Regardless of the scope of the disaster, Americans were too wrapped up in the end of the War Between the States and the death of their beloved President Lincoln. They took little notice of a Mississippi river boat sinking, no matter how many Union soldiers were on board. Few newspapers gave it more than a quick paragraph of mention, and not even on the front page.

The Riverboat Sultana more than just sank in the Mississippi River, it exploded first.

Its four steam boilers exploded violently in the dead of night, quickly engulfing the rest of the wooden boat in a wave of hungry flames. Survivors not killed instantly by the blast were faced with the terrible choice of burning to death or risk drowning in the dark, cold Mississippi. And these travelers were no ordinary passengers. The ship was filled far beyond its legal capacity with over 2,400 people. Most were former Union Prisoners of War who after 4 long years, wanted nothing more than to return home to their loved ones up north.

Sultana Captain James Cass Mason

Sultana’s legal capacity was only 376 passengers and crew! Union officers squeezed 2,400 bodies into every square inch of the riveboat’s 4 decks. Worst still, these poor men had survived the worst POW camps in all the South, the infamous Andersonville and Cahaba Confederate prison camps. For the last two years of the war, these poor soldiers endured horrific conditions at the hands of the Confederates. They lived in rags, subsisting on scraps, wasting away of starvation, and dying of dreadful diseases like cholera and scurvy. Now, not only were the survivors rescued, they were going home back north.

Why on earth was the Sultana so overcrowded? It was due to a shady deal between the Sultana’s greedy Captain James Cass Mason and some equally greedy Union officers in Vicksburg including chief quartermaster Captain Reuben Hatch. The officers ignored other riverboats in favor of filling the Sultana. Captain Mason was also part owner of the riverboat. He would be paid $2.75 for each soldier and $8.00 for each officer, so do the math. The more soldiers he could transport, the richer he would get.

The newly released prisoners, weakened from disease and malnutrition, were all loaded and squeezed together on the riverboat like hogs in a slaughterhouse. But remarkably, they were still in good spirits! After all, the War was finally over and they were finally headed home. Even an overcrowded riverboat was better than a Confederate POW camp.

The only photo of the overloaded Sultana Riverboat, taken the 2 days before in Arkansas
The only existing photo of the overloaded Sultana Riverboat, taken in Helena, Arkansas, April 1865

The Riverboat Sultana left Vicksburg, Mississippi in late April 1865 and traveled north up the twisting, muddy river, already swollen with heavy Spring rains. The former POWs made the best of their cramped situation. A newspaper photographer in Helena, Arkansas managed to take the only photo of the ridiculously crowded decks when it docked there the next day.

Unfortunately, just prior to leaving Vicksburg, Captain Mason had one of the Sultana’s cracked boilers quickly and cheaply patched with just a small plate. Mason wanted nothing to interfere with his big pay-off of transporting thousands of troops back north. This amounted to a ticking time bomb under the poor soldiers’ feet. Two days later, April 27th, 1865, while the tired men slept, the Sultana‘s cracked boiler exploded at 2 o’clock in the morning at an isolated bend in the Mississippi River, just north of Memphis.

Only 600 of the 2,400 souls aboard managed to survive the hell that followed.

There were no modern lifeboats and few cork life preservers. There was no wireless telegraph to call for help. The boiler explosions blew apart the center of the riverboat. The blast killed hundreds instantly, and the hungry fire spread rapidly. Those that did not burn to death, jumped into the cold, dark river. The Mississippi was turned it into a frothing chaos of weak, drowning men grasping for debris.

Four Union soldiers, victims of the Sultana Riverboat disaster
Four Union soldiers, victims of the Sultana Riverboat disaster

The burning hulk of the Sultana slowly drifted downriver, finally sinking in an angry cloud of steam. It was 2 hours before a southbound riverboat came upon and rescued the floundering survivors floating in the river. Captain Mason died on board the Sultana. Shockingly, no Vicksburg officers, included Captain Hatch, who resigned to avoid court-martial, were ever held accountable for the terrible overcrowding.

Countless Americans have never heard of the Sultana Disaster. These poor men were all but forgotten in history. A few of their ancestors, members of the Sultana Descendants Association, faithfully meet in the Spring each year to keep the memory of their ancestors alive. A new Sultana Disaster Museum opened in nearby Marion, Arkansas in 2026. An excellent documentary of the tragedy, Remember the Sultana, was released in 2018, and is now available on Prime. The wreck of the Sultana was discovered in 1982 in an Arkansas soybean field, two miles from the current river.

Thanks to the nonfiction books by Jerry Potter and Gene Salecker, I thoroughly researched the Sultana disaster and wrote a historical novel, SULTANA AWAITS to do my part in making sure those brave men, who sacrificed so much, are never forgotten. It follows two young Indiana brothers who volunteer to fight for the Union army, and end up prisoners of war in Andersonville and Cahaba. Then at the close of the Civil War, they end up in Vicksburg, Mississippi and board the doomed riverboat Sultana.

Read the historical novel SULTANA AWAITS by Paul Andrews.
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5 Reasons the 1889 Johnstown Flood Should Never Have Happened

Experience the Johnston Flood in the young adult historical novel SWEPT AWAY.
Depiction of the Johnstown Flood at the Stone Bridge
Depiction of the Johnstown Flood and Fire at the Stone Bridge, 1889

The Johnstown Flood of 1889 was more a man-made Tsunami than a flood by Mother Nature.  Yes, there was flooding first, when a torrential storm arrived on Memorial Day 1889. The two rivers that flanked the steel mill town, the Stoney Creek and Little Conemaugh Rivers, swelled and flooded the riverfront.  But this was normal for a river town. The residents thought nothing of rolling up their carpets and carrying them upstairs.  It wasn’t until the aging dam burst upriver that the real, staggering tragedy and loss of life occurred.  

The South Fork Dam was completed 37 years earlier in 1852.  Lake Conemaugh sat for twenty-two years in an isolated, forested valley, 14 miles upriver from Johnstown.  An investor named Benjamin Ruff later bought the lake. He turned it into a mountain retreat for the wealthy elite of Pittsburgh.  The “SOUTH FORK FISHING & HUNTING CLUB” was born with millionaires like Henry Frick, Andrew Carnegie, and Andrew Mellon as its charter members.  For ten years, it was THE summer retreat of choice for the millionaires of Pennsylvania and their families.   When the lake was full, the pristine water stretched three miles long and over a mile across. A large clubhouse and numerous luxury cottage dotted the shoreline.

FIVE key mistakes were made with the South Fork Dam that doomed it to its fateful collapse. 

Sketch of Lake Conemaugh and the South Fork Club,
Sketch of Lake Conemaugh and the South Fork Club, 1889

FIRST – Large cast iron pipes were originally built into a culvert at the base of the breast to control the level of the lake when needed.  A prior owner removed them and sold the pipes for scrap metal!  In an effort to avoid costly repairs, the new South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club did not replace them.  Though the dam did have a spillway for overflow, this still left no means to ever drain the lake when badly needed repairs were necessary. 

SECOND – The South Fork Club added a screen of cast iron bars across the spillway to prevent their precious bass and trout from escaping.  Sport fishing was one of the draws for wealthy gentlemen, along with small game hunting along the shores.  Unfortunately, it also caught all the branches and forest leaves that fell each season. There was no longer any way for them to simply float out. This decreased the spillway’s effectiveness in times of high rains. 

THIRD – A minor break in the breast during the Civil War left the dam badly in need of repairs.  The owners of the South Fork Club had only the exposed side of the breast repaired in 1881, since the lake could no longer be drained. They had their workers only patch it haphazardly with rocks, hemlock, mud, hay, and even cow manure! Plus they chose a gentleman from Pittsburgh with no engineering credentials to lead the repair. 

This led, over the years, to a gradual sagging of the dam’s center!  

By 1889, the middle of the breast had dipped by about two feet lower than either end. 

FORTH – Around the same time, the South Fork Club owners actually had the entire breast of the dam lowered three feet to accommodate a wider carriage road across the top.  You see, the owners wanted it wide enough for two carriages to be able to pass each other going either to or from the Clubhouse. This would be so as not make their wealthy guests have wait in line at either end of the dam.  Heaven forbid there be such an inconvenience to their wealthy guests!

FIFTH and finally – the South Fork Club owners had two unqualified steel mill inspectors come to Lake Conemaugh and examine the dam a few years before the collapse. This was because local witnesses were increasingly alarmed the dam’s shoddy state. The ‘inspectors’ stated that “The South Fork Dam was perfectly safe to withstand all the pressure that can be brought to bear on it by the waters of Lake Conemaugh.”  Well, history tells us how inaccurate those 2 men were. 

That spring, the lake was already full from a heavy winter snow melt coming off the Allegheny Mountains.  Heavy rains that weekend, from a mid-west ‘Storm of the Century,’ finally brought the waters up and over the breast. It was only a matter of time before disaster struck. Men feverishly tried to add more fill to the top of the dam, but it was a wasted effort. The aged dam finally burst on Memorial Day, 1889, releasing 20 million tons of water in a matter of minutes.  John Parke, the Hunting Club’s young engineer galloped his horse to the nearby village of South Fork to warn the residents.

At 4:00 pm on May 31st ,1889, a tsunami of lake water 35 FEET HIGH travelling 45 MPH rushed down the narrow South Fork River valley like a runaway train.  It collected miles of deadly debris along the way, wiping away a stone railroad trestle and four smaller villages. Just before Johnstown, it took away a large rail yard and even a barbed wire steel mill in Woodvale. Then the wall of water finally slammed brutally into the city and its unsuspecting citizens, loaded with debris.  

The poor souls had no warning other than an unearthly roar coming from up the river valley. 

The wave hit Johnstown hard. It destroyed hundreds of homes, killing thousands of residents, and wiped entire city blocks off the map.  Those who didn’t die instantly, drowned in the rising floodwaters, laced with the remains of the bridge, steel mill and railyard.  A mountain of wreckage jammed like a second dam at the thick arches of the Stone Bridge over the Conemaugh River just outside of town.  The wooden debris eventually caught fire due to numerous gas leaks. Whirlpools formed due to the steep mountainsides surrounding the city.  Johnstown became in essence a second, swirling Lake Conemaugh.  

Some of the destruction following the Johnstown Flood of 1889

By the time waters drained and the sun rose the next morning, the dazed survivors discovered a mangled city covered in mud, debris and corpses.  Over 2,200 souls lost their lives, including 400 children and 100 complete families. Clara Barton and the newly formed Red Cross rushed in by train to help the hungry, homeless survivors. Reporters swarmed to the scene. The entire nation was in shock over the sheer cope of the disaster. Bodies were found downriver as far as Cincinnati, Ohio. A haunting poem by Isaac Reed sums it up.

Many thousand human lives-
Butchered husbands, slaughtered wives
Mangled daughters, bleeding sons,
Hosts of martyred little ones,
Worse than Herod’s awful crime
Sent to heaven before their time;
Lovers burnt and sweethearts drowned,
Darlings lost but never found!
All the horrors that hell could wish,
Such was the price that was paid for fish

And what of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club and its wealthy Pittsburgh owners?  Surely their part in the failed dam and the Johnstown Flood led to them paying a heavy price.  Well, think again.  Thanks to some high-priced Pittsburgh lawyers, Benjamin Ruff and his wealthy investors were never held accountable. Not for the deaths, or damages, by what was legally deemed by judges in the courts “An Act of God.”  Pennsylvanian citizens considered them Robber Barons who had gotten away with murder.

The remains of the South Fork Dam still exist today.  The flanking sides of the old breast are a carefully preserved Johnstown Flood National Memorial managed by the U.S. Parks Service.  Railroad tracks next to the quiet South Fork River now run through the quiet valley that once held the Lake Conemaugh.  If you are ever in the Pittsburgh area, take time to visit both the memorial and the rebuilt, modern city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The Johnstown Flood Museum preserves the memory of the victims, so that we might never forget the consequences of man’s folly. 

Experience the Johnston Flood in the young adult historical novel SWEPT AWAY.
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Was the Great Chicago Fire Started by a Cow?

Experience the Great Chicago Fire in the historical novel FIREBRANDS 
Chicagoans flee THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE of 1871
Chicagoans flee the GREAT CHICAGO FIRE of 1871

It is true the infamous Great Chicago Fire started in the barn of Catherine O’Leary on Sunday night, October 8th, 1871.  They lived in a small lot at 137 DeKoven Street on Chicago’s West Side. But poor Kate O’Leary was not milking a cow at the time, as was later popularized by the relentless press. They were looking for a scapegoat, someone to blame.  She and her husband were instead fast asleep in their bedroom after a long day of work. They were morning laborers, up at the crack of dawn to milk their 5 cows and make deliveries to their neighbors. By 8:30 PM, after feeding both their barn animals and their 5 children, they were legitimately exhausted.

Some also blamed Daniel “Peg Leg” Sullivan for starting the blaze. He was the first person to shout “FIRE! FIRE!” in the dark streets that fateful night. But no, Daniel was simply strolling by the O’Leary place. He was listening to fiddle music drifting from a neighbor’s house, who were hosting a party.  He noticed the first lick of flames shooting out of the O’Leary’s barn roof. The loft was packed with 3 tons of hay for the winter and went up like a bone-dry tinder box. Peg Leg Sullivan in fact risked his life to free the O’Leary’s terrified animals. A shed next door unfortunately held 2 tons of coal, also stockpiled by a neighbor for the winter. That quickly ignited next.

Once the barn and shed began to burn, there would be no controlling the blaze.

Across Chicago, a fierce, gusting prairie wind blew from the southwest all night long.  In between the tightly packed wooden houses were lines of wooden fences and wooden sidewalks. By the time Patrick and Kate O’Leary emerged sleepily from their home, two of their neighbors’ houses were already ablaze.  Chicago had been experiencing a terribly hot drought that autumn.  The winds would eagerly thrust the fire from house to house … and then street to street, throughout the long night.  Desperate neighbors would first try bucket brigades, but it would be all for naught.

Due to fire signal confusion by the Chicago Fire Department that Sunday night, the first Firehouse Steamers would not arrive at the West Side street for OVER AN HOUR!  Even when a dozen steamers arrived, entire city blocks were now on fire. It was too late to contain it just to the rural West Side.  You see back in the 1800’s, nearly every structure, including those sidewalks, was made of wood, not brick or stone. 

The 1871 Great Chicago Fire reaches Lake Michigan
The 1871 Great Chicago Fire reaches Lake Michigan

The winds freely tossed huge firebrands the size of livestock clear across the dark Chicago River to the South Side. There, huge warehouses and the large business district waited.  The wind-fed inferno charged along, consuming dozens of factories and lumber yards. Then it swept into city center, burning luxury hotels, banks, department stores, and even the Opera House and the cupola’d City Hall.  At 1:30 AM, prisoners were let out of the jail to save their lives.

Tall grain silos lining the edge of Lake Michigan burnt like monstrous Roman candles. Panicked residents crowded onto bridges across the Chicago River trying to escape. Everywhere, buildings collapsed into heaps of burning rubble. City officials convinced the Fire Marshal to make a feeble attempt at a fire break by dynamiting a few South Side buildings.  Unfortunately, it had little effect.  Only the waters of Lake Michigan halted its ravenous eastward march.

Within hours, the fire jumped the river again to the heavily populated North Side residential area. The Fire Brigades, with their tiny steamer engines, were not equipped to handle such a massive conflagration.  Dozens of city blocks, filled with ornate mansions, homes, schools and church steeples all went up in flames.  All Chicagoans could do was run and watch in horror. They dashed away in panic, ahead of the advancing front of flames.  Even ships docked in the Chicago River and the wooden bridges that crossed it, eventually caught fire and were consumed.  In the middle of the night, dazed refugees huddled in Lincoln Park, or waded into the cold waters of Lake Michigan, praying to God for deliverance.

The Great Chicago Fire burned to Lake Michigan. An early morning rain finally extinguished the hungry monster. 

What was left of the city resembled Hiroshima after the atomic blast.  Over 300 souls perished and 2,000 acres were consumed in the mighty blaze.  Thousands of survivors were left homeless. The entire nation was shocked that one of their largest cities could literally go up in smoke. The city would be rebuilt, of course, this time in brick and stone.

In the weeks to come, Irish immigrant Kate O’Leary and her famous cow, were merely made unfortunate scapegoats. The papers went so far as to publish a now infamous sketch of her milking a cow that kicks a lantern into the straw.  They drew her as an old, witch-like hag when in fact she was only thirty-five, with five young children to take care of.  She and her family eventually had to flee the city due to numerous death threats.

Destruction following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871
Destruction following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871

So who Really started the famous fire that consumed a bustling American city? Historians today believe that it was not Catherine O’Leary or Peg Leg Sullivan.  The most likely, though never proven culprit, was one of the O’Leary’s neighbors, the McLaughlins, from that rowdy party next door.  If you had no cow, it was common to steal free milk from your neighbor’s barn under the cover of night.  The drunken thief from the party likely had a candle that tipped over and fell into the hay. It starting the barn’s brittle, dry straw to blaze, and the shocked robber fled into the night. 

After that, the rest is history.  It would indeed be a “Hot Time in the Ole Town Tonight!“

Experience the Great Chicago Fire in the historical novel, FIREBRANDS 

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Source: https://greatchicagofire.org/

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