Created By: Ithaca Heritage
A torrential rainfall started on Sunday July 7th, 1935, and fell throughout the day and into the night. By 3:00 A.M. Monday morning Trumansburg Creek had swelled into terrifying proportions, and an angry wall of water 12 feet high roared through the village, smashing buildings into splinters, and carrying off five people to their deaths. Every single store on Main Street in the heart of the village was damaged, and five homes were completely destroyed. Two stores were washed away, with nothing left of them but the gaping holes made by their basements. One of them collapsed with a tenant who lived above it, and she was hurled to her death in the wreckage.
IMAGE 2:Intersection Rt 96 (Main St.) and Union St in Trumansburg covered in flood water. 1935.
Images courtesy of The History Center in Tompkins County, 2022.
This point of interest is part of the tour: Facing Floods - Traverse Tompkins
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