Washed away: How the Great Flood of 1913 devastated Indiana

Originally published in 2016.

The rain that began on Easter Sunday in 1913 triggered one of the worst floods in Indiana history.

That March, the weather became unsettled, and then it went wild.

The Star reported on March 22 that a windstorm swept through Indianapolis, ripping off roofs. A brick chimney collapsed and fell through the roof at Holy Angels Catholic Church at 28th Street and Northwestern Avenue.

March 24 brought reports of a cyclone hitting Terre Haute. Seven fatalities were reported. Widespread damage was reported between Terre Haute and Greencastle.

Then things got worse.

"Four Die in State Floods; City Danger Grows," was the headline in The Star the morning of March 25. White River stood 23 inches above the "danger line." Eleven inches of rain had fallen on the city since March 22, and the river was rising 4 inches an hour. The ground, still frozen or saturated from the spring thaw, made the landscape ripe for flooding.

During the early evening of March 25, an earthen levee gave way.

"When the earth dikes across the bottoms began to break on Monday and the river to overflow, no one anticipated any great trouble," a committee charged with providing relief would write later.

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The rain continued to fall and neighborhood after neighborhood was threatened. People were urged to flee.

But before hundreds had realized the situation, the last walls of defense were broken through, and 4 to 10 feet of muddy water swept over 4 square miles within and near the city.

"There were nearly four thousand families, mostly earnest working people of modest means, living in that district," the relief committee noted.

In the years leading up to the 1913 flood, the city's population had grown immensely. In 1880, it stood at 75,000; by 1910, it had topped 233,000. 

At the time, there was no Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the American Red Cross wasn't set up for such an emergency. Indianapolis Mayor Samuel L. Shank created the General Relief Committee for Flood Sufferers. The stations were opened in available buildings and distributed donated clothing, food and supplies.

Residents received "relief cards" that indicated the size of their household, employment and other basic information, and they were allotted supplies accordingly.

Across Indiana

More than 180 bridges across Indiana were destroyed and railroad travel, the primary source of transportation at the time, was impossible. Food supplies quickly dwindled, resulting in near famine in some areas.

The flooding affected Fort Wayne, Lafayette, Terre Haute and most locations along White River, the East Fork of the White, Wabash and Whitewater rivers.

Rainfall for the five-day period beginning March 23 ranged from 2 inches in Northwest Indiana to more than 11 inches in the Richmond/east-central Indiana area.

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The crest of the flood passed through the northern reaches of the rivers March 25-26, the central parts March 26-27 and the southern courses March 27-28.

According to the United States Weather Bureau, the flooding that resulted "cost the lives of scores of people, rendered many thousands homeless, and destroyed property beyond estimate. . . . The enormous losses over such an extended area are unprecedented in the history of this portion of the United States, and it must follow that an occurrence so unusual must have been produced by extraordinary weather conditions."

While some homes were salvaged, many homes and businesses were beyond repair. And the immediate cleanup was brutal. As the floodwaters receded, the temperatures plummeted from the 60s to the 20s. And it snowed, which was itself a blessing as it inhibited the growth of mold in homes and buildings.

The cold, however, couldn't stop the spread of typhoid, which claimed even more lives in the flood's fallout. 

Flooding left the Wabash River nearly seven miles wide. It averaged 5 to 7 feet deep between Vincennes and Lawrenceville, Illinois. While there was no official county, the death toll in Indiana is estimated between 100 to 200.

In the aftermath of the flood, Indiana established a flood control commission.

Follow IndyStar visuals manager and RetroIndy writer Dawn Mitchell on Twitter: @dawn_mitchell61.