Lou’s View – Aug. 11, 2016
The Austin Dam Connection
By Lou Bernard
On June 26, the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers took a field trip into Potter County to see the Austin Dam ruins. This is the site of one of the most tragic disasters Pennsylvania has ever had: On September 30, 1911, the dam broke, because it was clearly designed by the lowest bidder. Seventy-eight people were killed in the flood, and their names are now inscribed on a monument at the dam.
The dam itself is impressive. Several large chunks of the dam, about as big as houses, sit where they landed after it broke. These days, the county of Potter has made a nice park out of the place, which acts as a community memorial to the event.
There are plenty of local connections to Clinton County in the Austin disaster. Lock Haven citizens reached out to Austin after the flood, offering help and support. Mayor William Bentley contacted Austin’s mayor by mail to ask what was needed, but the Austin mayor wound up among the dead. Bentley later got a telegram from the head of the local phone exchange, thanking him for his offer of help.
After the flood, there was an influx of refugees to Renovo and Lock Haven, people relocating because their homes were destroyed. This is why LHPS went to visit, because we’ve been involved with one of these connections recently.
The Sykes family, who had relatives in Lock Haven, lived in Austin. Frank Sykes, his wife Libby, and their three boys, Gilbert, Mervin, and baby Joseph. They were victims of the flood. When the dam blew, they were caught in the rushing water—Libby Sykes was last seen, according to a documentary about the disaster, looking for a shawl to wrap baby Joseph in.
Frank Sykes was the only survivor of his family. After the town of Austin was wiped out by the disaster, he came to Lock Haven to stay with his brother-in-law, Lester Hirsch of 123 East Walnut Street. Authorities were still searching for bodies and sorting through the wreckage—The cry of the Austin citizens at the time was “Give us our dead!”
It took over a week to find the bodies.
On October 9, the newspapers reported that Lydia and the older boys had been discovered. The baby hadn’t turned up, and to the best of my knowledge, never did. The bodies were shipped to Lock Haven, where a grieving Frank Sykes was staying.
“The bodies of Mrs. Frank Sykes, her sons, Gilbert, aged four years, and Mervin, aged two and a half years, victims of the Austin disaster, arrived in this city early Sunday morning and were taken in charge by Undertaker E.B. Waters,” the article said. “The remains of the unfortunate persons reposed in three modest caskets and were in a fairly good state of preservation, inasmuch as they had been under the debris for about a week. All bodies had been scientifically embalmed in one of the morgues at Austin and were not disfigured to any great extent by the wreckage.”
The funeral was held at Hirsch’s home, under the direction of Rabbi Lewis Wainger, who had come from the local synagogue—In the early 1900s, that stood at the corner of Clinton and Commerce Streets, not far from present-day Weis Market. The family had been well-liked, and over a hundred people came to pay respects. The newspapers said,”The attendance of relatives and friends was in such numbers that not nearly all could get into the house.”
All of them, over a hundred people, walked to Beth Yehuda Cemetery, along Glenn Road. That’s where they buried the Sykes family, and Frank Sykes later moved into 333 South Fairview Street, the oldest house along that street. Their gravestone says,”May their souls be bound up in the bond of eternal life.”
If you can, make some time to drive up to Potter County and visit the Austin Dam ruins. They sit today alongside Route 872 as a memorial to the tragedy, and it’s well worth the trip. If you can’t go, then stop by Beth Yehuda Cemetery sometime, and sit for a moment at the gravestone to the Sykes family. All gone too soon, a poor family with little boys who will never grow up.
