(Old) Shawneetown, IL: L&N Depot, Old Grain Elevator and 1937 Flood

New: (Satellite)

Old: (Satellite)

(The coal dock has more information about the L&N, B&O and Peabody railroads.)   

David Cantrell posted two photos with the comment: "First photo is L&N Old Shawneetown depot from Gallatin County Historical society. Second is after 1937 flood floated it around from National Archives. The building was moved near New Shawneetown after 1937 and is a residence today."

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David Cantrell posted
April 3rd, 1898 flood at Old Shawneetown, Illinois. L&N depot in upper right corner.

Dennis DeBruler commented on David's post

As we have discussed before, the L&N shared B&O's track between west of Junction, IL, and Old Shawneetown.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1467664233256543/permalink/3368952186461062/

This 1940 aerial photo shows where the routes diverged again at L&N Junction. I put a red rectangles around what I believe was the L&N depot. I could not find the current location of the building.

David Cantrell: The rectangle is the former depot location.

While taking a quick look for the current location of the residence, I noticed an old grain elevator in the background. I was pleasantly surprised that the street car went down a side road in 2013 and that I could grab some views of it.

Street View, Sep 2013

Street View

Chuck Edmonson posted eight photos with the comment:

The rising of the Ohio River in early January of 1937 did cause some worry but not untypically. The counties of Gallatin and Alexander which included towns like Shawneetown and Cairo were accustomed to spring floods over the years but by late January the prospect of a great flood was very real. A month of heavy rains and melting snows had turned the Ohio into a vast torrent of raging waters.

Downriver at Cairo the levees came within inches of being topped by flood waters but held before receding.  Meanwhile upriver towns like Golconda, Rosiclare, Elizabethtown had became mere isolated islands of high ground as floods swept over the lands, but none would incur the wrath of Mother Nature like Shawneetown did. Roads became rivers and huddled on rooftops and street corners, the residents awaited rescue as motorboats navigated city streets moving them to higher ground as the Ohio reached it crest on Jan. 31.

 By the time the flood waters receded in mid-February, Shawneetown had been virtually destroyed and authorities opted to completely rebuild the town several miles inland. Now two Shawneetowns exist the new and the old, one thriving the other a ghost of its' former self.

 Altogether some 385 souls would be lost as the Ohio raged from Pittsburgh to Cairo and around a million people would be homeless, but for old Shawneetown it sounded the death knoll.

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