By Harold H. Strayer and Irving L. London

This was the 500 block of Main Street on June 1, 1889! Debris was piled three stories high. Sidewalks ceased to exist and to get from one building to another, you would have to crawl from the second story of one building to the other. The brick building behind the leaning telegraph pole was the Bantly Block. It was finished in March of 1889 and housed the Geis and Schry's store which was destroyed. This brick building and the Mueller building next to it still stands today and is the home of such popular establishments as the Cookie Jar, Richmans Clothes, Sherwin - Williams Paints and Thom McCann shoes. On the right is John Thomas and L. M. Woolf stores. Sears, Roebuck and Company occupied this building from 1936 to 1964.

The flood wave that rushed down Clinton Street continued its journey to meet the Stonycreek River. Houses were washed away or tossed about like match sticks. The house in the foreground stood at Main and Bedford Street where five bodies were found about three weeks after the flood. Levergood Street, running diagonally from left to right no longer existed! The church shown in the upper right hand corner still stands on Somerset Street and is a house of worship for St. Mary's Helenic Orthodox congregation.