Frozen Creek Flood, Breathitt, Kentucky, 1939

Date: 5 Jul 1939 to 10 Jul 1939
Location: Frozen Creek, Breathitt, Kentucky, United States
Surnames/tags: Kentucky Appalachian

Only July 5th, 1939, the worst disaster to ever hit in Breathitt County, Kentucky came in the form of a flash flood. Nearly 39 people lost their lives and over Five Million dollars in damage came to the area. Back in those days, people in the hills handled things different than now. Some of the old mountain families who lost a family member would take care of their funeral and burial themselves without reporting the death to the county officials.

The Louisville Courier-Journal, the state's largest newspaper, ran this story and several others in the days just after the Frozen Flood of July 4-5, 1939.

Wall Of Water Raced Over Frozen Creek Valley Nighttime Cloud Burst Caused Many Breathitt County Deaths

By Ralph Brady - (Louisville Courier-Journal)

July 6, 1939 - Fears that scores of Breathitt County's flood toll, already standing at fifty-eight dead and missing, had been swept into the Kentucky River were verified tonight with recovery of ten bodies at Beattyville, thirty miles west of here.

The bodies were believed to be those of Wilhurst residents, whose homes were destroyed early yesterday morning when a twenty-foot wall of water came roaring down the Frozen Creek valley.

Chief of Police Virgil Smith at Beattyville said seven more bodies were. seen floating by but were not recovered. He said that volunteers are stationed at many points on the river, watching and ready to recover other bodies as they float by.

20 Recovered In Breathitt

Chief Smith said three of the bodies were recovered there were identified as a [Mrs. King] and her two children, and another as a [Mrs. Rose].

Twenty Breathitt bodies have been recovered and identified, and authorities have the names of thirty-eight more believed to be drowned, but not recovered.

Meanwhile, Gerald Griffin, staff correspondent of The Courier-Journal on assignment at Morehead, reported Rowan County's death toll still stands at twenty-five, with no additional bodies recovered Thursday. He reported two bodies found in Lewis County, those of Mrs. Oscar Hillum and her child.

$5,000,000 Damage Seen

While Breathitt was still counting dead that may send the Rowan-Breathitt total to more than 100, estimates of property damage in two counties was set as high as $5,000,000. The flash floods in both sections were caused by a deluge of nearly three inches of rainfall in from three to four hours.

House in nearby Rowan County. Helps you understand the force of the water.

It appeared virtually certain today that the toll here was confined to the Frozen Creek valley, particularly in the ten-mile stretch between Wilhurst and Cockrell's Bridge on State Road 15. The huge wall of water that roared down the valley swept everything in front of it - houses, barns, fences, crops, farm animals and residents. Destruction in this valley was written in terms of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A revised list of recovered and identified dead, made early tonight, follows:

1. George L. Banks (abt.1872-abt.1939), 70
2. Irene Childers (1923-1939), 16
3. Barney Deaton (1877-1939), 65
4. Sylvester B Deaton (1926-1939)
5. Lillie Mae Deaton (1928-1939), 10

1. Estill Fletcher (1901-1939), 40
2. Earl Howard (1894-1939), 45
3. Dora Lee (Barker) King (1909-1939), 39
4. Blanche King (1934-1939), 5
5. Shirley King (1936-1939), 3
6. Seldon Mann (1920-1939), 17
7. America Anna Mann (1927-1939), 11

1. Louvina Esther (Minton) Spicer (1899-1939), 38

1. Roxie Spicer (1920-1939), 17
2. Irene Spicer (1928-1939),12
3. Admiral Taulbee (1922-1939), 18
4. Florence Trent (1930-1939), 9
5. Emma (Watkins) Trent (1905-1939), 40
6. Gillie Ann (Williams) Prater (1861-1939), 78

These two were mis-identified in the paper:

1. Georgia Banks, 3
2. Custer Cornett, 12

The list of Breathitt missing, compiled from the best sources available at 10 PM tonight, follows: (Note: These people were associated with the Van Cleve Methodist Missionary School.]

1. Hilbert Goodpasture (1920-1939), 19
2. Bettie Mae Myers (1924-1939), 15
3. Glenyce Miller (1924-1939), 15
4. Rev Horace Meyers (1903-1939), 40
5. Lela Grace Myers (1939-1939), 7 mths
6. Phillip Larne Myers (1934-1939), 5
7. Benjamin Titus Myers (1933-1939), 6
8. Elsie Booth (1920-1939), 18

1. Louisa Noble (1915-1939), 19
2. Gary Nathan Pelfrey (1938-1939), 1

1. William Trent and four children

::Later they were found; it was his wife and daughter who drowned

1. Emma (Watkins) Trent (1905-1939),34
2. Florence Trent (1930-1939),9

1. Mr. and Mrs. William King and two children

Later they were found.

1. John King and a child

Later, his wife and four children were identified as victims.

Delmar King (1931-1939), 8

John King Jr (1927-1939), 12

Lula King (1939-1939), 5 mths

1. Francis Evelyn Rose (1915-1939), 24
2. Ola Ruth Rose (1937-1939), 2

1. Medea (Blanton) Howard (1897-1939), 42

1. Forest Howard (1926-1939), 13
2. Roberta Howard (1933-1939)
3. Lonie (Prater) Tolson (1886-1939), 53
4. Delilah Deaton (1879-1939), 60

1. Two children of Roland Taylor

Dorsey Lee Taylor (1930-1939)

Loraine Taylor (1938-1939)

1. A woman, her two daughters and a son visiting the Taylor family

Some were found, but these two drowned.

1. Mary Lee Brooks (1887-1939), 52
2. Gladys Burchum (1924-1939), 15

Identified Later

1. Richard Spicer (1890-1939), 49
2. Thomas Lee Dunn (1938-1939), 6 mths
3. Ann Christine Holman (1919-1939), 20

Rain today in many areas hamper relief work. An acute problem of housing the homeless, feeding and clothing them was at hand.

At Jackson, NYA workers were put to work making wooden coffins and cotton shrouds. By order of health authorities, bodies recovered were embalmed and buried as quickly as possible.

Survivors in the many flood-washed sections have little left but their lives. Their homes, crops, livestock, all are gone. Much land has been ruined throughout the valleys, at least until extensive rehabilitation work can be done.

This reporter and Arthur Abfier, photographer, for The Courier-Journal, walked long hours through the devastated area near here last night. Where once there had been little settlements, farm acres, livestock, nothing left but water-wrecked marks of where these communities had been. Mud, debris, twisted bridge structures, gouged out road, and the croaking of frogs gave the whole scene an eerie, vacant character.

At Van Cleve and Wilhurst, relatives of those who had lived along the creek's course there came to ask hesitantly about one-time residents of the communities.

A group of four women, informed that a girl relative of all of them definitely was known to have drowned, fell to their knees on the wet concrete and wailed out their mourning and prayers.

House Stopped By Bridge From the wide space on the road which marked the location of the big general store operated at Wilhurst by Walter Rose, whose wife and daughter vanished in the swirling, muddy flood, we trapped to Van Cleve where against the remains of a concrete bridge rested what was left of the eleven-room house of the A. L. Hatton family. Mrs. Hatton and her three children escaped when the house jarred to an abrupt stop against the bridge-work and permitted the occupants to swim and scrambled to safety on nearby high ground. They climbed out a window in a third-story room.

Here, too, was the Van Cleve Methodist Missionary School, which bowled downstream on the crest of the wall of water, with its residents frantically tolling the school bell, praying and screaming for help in the gray dawn, while watchers on high ground stood by, horror-stricken and helpless to aid them. Twelve of the nineteen students were believed lost. The rest escaped.

Breathitt County, authorities said, was in need of food, clothing and medicines. Authorities asked that trucks be sent to transport the goods to the wrecked Frozen Creek bridge, on State Route 15, and from there they could be carried by workers to the higher, undamaged homes where the homeless are being cared for.

Friday morning, the Red Cross will distribute a week's supply of food to 100 families in the stricken area.

References

• Geological Flood Paper with photos
• Flash Flood Disaster of July 1939