City of Ithaca - The Great Flood of 1935

Six Mile Creek in the City of Ithaca is channelized through high concrete walls, and normally runs gently over the creekbed, a trickle winding its way out to Cayuga Lake. But on Sunday night, July 7, 1935, after more than seven inches of rain had fallen, it was a raging torrent overtopping the concrete walls. Police and firefighters banged on doors in the neighborhood to rouse the residents to evacuate. One resident, a child at the time, remembers being rushed to Barton Hall on the Cornell campus, where hundreds of other residents fled for safety. "...In front of our house , my young eyes saw a scene I will never forget. Here was this mild mannered Creek with never more than a trickle now having become a mighty heaving river with water rushing at a frantic pace...."

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IMAGE 1: People alongside an overflowing creek in a residential neighborhood (possibly Fall Creek). 1935.

A creek, deep set in concrete, its water flowing over top the bridge in the foreground, flows through a residential neighborhood. Houses and trees line the far side of the street, and people, some in rain boots, line both sides of the creek. In the foreground broken branches litter the cross street the creek flows under.

IMAGE 2: Two cars submerged halfway up their tires by flood water on a residential street. Houses are in the background. 1935.

IMAGE 3: West Buffalo Street in Ithaca. A line of cars appraches past a tree down a flooded West Biffalo St, with houses along the right side of the picture, and in the background. The railroad crossing is visible at the end of the block, with boxcars labeled "Lakawana." The bottom half of the picture is standing water. 1935

Images courtesy of The History Center in Tompkins County, 2022.

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