I had been past the remains of the dam on several occasions, but for whatever reasons, I couldn’t stop. This morning, Laurie and I were going to visit the site of the Austin community in Potter County, Pennsylvania.
The original dam was built in 1909 after a local paper mill owner realized he hadn’t enough water to operate his paper mill just north of the community during especially dry seasons. The dam was constructed across the Freeman Run Valley to solve that problem. The concrete dam was fifty feet high, five-hundred and forty feet long across the valley and twenty feet thick. Plans called for a thirty feet thick structure. The twenty feet thick dam was constructed to help save costs. Problems were quickly discovered.
The problems of cracking concrete was spoken of natural due to the concrete curing process.
South of the dam was a community of about three-thousand people. The area was known as Austin.
In September of 1911, heavy raids had been occurring and the dam was reaching a crisis level. A young girl reported within the community the warning of failure. many people responded, but others didn’t for whatever reason. It is quite probable not everyone heard the warning.
On the thirtieth of the month the dam failed allowing a wall of water to explode its way south smashing into Austin, Pennsylvania. Seventy-eight people perished.
There is an Austin Dam memorial Park present at the dam’s site.
A new dam was built in 1942 and it failed also. The photos here are of the original dam site.
I discovered some beauty above the site with the wildflowers of the Marsh marigold and trout Lily.
Larry A. Smail's Blog 
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