The New Student's Reference Work/Johnstown, Penn.

Johnstown, Penn., a city on Conemaugh River, by rail fifty-eight miles southeast of Pittsburg.  Manufacturing of various kinds is extensively carried on, steel-making being the most important industry.  The plant of the Cambria Steel Company is one of the best equipped establishments of the kind in America.  There also are the Lorain Steel Company, an iron and steel works, furniture factories, potteries, a wireworks and woolen and leather factories.  Public buildings of note are Cambria Free Library, Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital, the city-hall, high school, Franciscan monastery and several churches.

Johnstown is famous as the scene of one of the greatest catastrophes of recent years.  By the bursting of a reservoir on May 31, 1889, the city was overwhelmed with a flood.  The water descended through a narrow valley and destroyed everything in its path.  The loss of life is estimated at 2,500 or 3,000.  An appeal for aid was generously responded to both at home and abroad, the cash contributions amounting to more than $4,000,000.  Johnstown to-day is a much larger and finer city than before her misfortune, of which but few traces remain.  The city occupies the hundredth place in America’s large cities, its population being 55,482.