Page 34 - A Flood of Memories

6:00 AM
Dayton: Rising water replaced by higher education
8:30 AM
Above: Floodwater rose very quickly during the 1913 ood, and here’s a dramatic example. Notice the time in each of the three photos, which represents a ve-hour time span at this house on Maple Street. At 6 a.m.,
the oodwater covered the street and sidewalks but hadn’t even reached the steps leading to the porch. Two-and-one-half hours later at 8:30 a.m., the ood- water already had reached the bottom of the rst- oor windows. The different angles of the two photos show the photographer had moved to a higher oor to take the second photo. By 11 a.m., the water had reached the second oor. Without radio or television, residents had no way of knowing how much farther the water would rise. If the water rose two oors in just ve hours, surely they must have expected the worst.
11:00 AM
Right: The homes along Maple Street are long gone - along with what was then known as one of Dayton’s most prestigious neighborhoods - removed by the urban renewal projects of the 1960s. In their place is the campus of Sinclair Community College, one of the premier community colleges in the United States. This walkway near Building 14 follows the path of Maple Street.
Sinclair celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2012. Founded in 1887, Sinclair is likely America’s oldest continuously operating community college. It offers the lowest tuition rate in Ohio.
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1913