BYBEE-MALOTT : THE FLOOD OF 1913 



195 



Bridge Company. The great loss in Daviess County was received 

 by the B. & O. R. R. Co. It is impossible to get more than an 

 approximate estimate of what it cost to replace the bridge across 

 the river, four and one-half miles west of Washington. Nearly 

 a hundred men were employed for over eight months. It took 

 nearly all summer to build the pier in the middle of the river. This 

 pier is built on bed rock sixty-five feet below the surface of the 

 water; at its base it is forty-five feet wide, and is long enough on 

 top for a double track. The butments of the new bridge were 

 set back some twenty feet, making the opening under it some 

 forty feet wider than formerly. The new bridge is approximately 

 six hundred feet in length. This bridge could not have cost the 

 B. & 0. R. R. Co. any less than $100,000, and may have cost much 

 more. A mile and a quarter east of the river bridge is 'Blue Hole,' 

 where about four hundred feet of track and trestle went out, and 

 with it a train which was being used in placing sand bags on the 

 grade between there and the river. The waters must have rushed 

 through this opening with tremendous speed and force. The hole, 

 for it is a hole, is 350 feet wide, 700 feet long, and 40 feet deep. In 

 the rebuilding of the trestle, carload after carload of rock ballast 

 was dumped into the place, so that now it shows above the water 

 under the trestle. The engine that went down in the hole was 

 afterwards raised and now is in service in the yards at Washington. 

 'Blue Hole' was started in the flood of 1875, and has given more 

 or less trouble ever since. It was made about twice as large during 

 the last flood as it Avas before. Evidently, it cost the B. & 0. R. 

 R. Co., several thousand dollars this last year, no less than $6,000, 

 considering the large squad of men they had hunting for two weeks 

 for the bodies of the men drowned in the flood. 



The total estimated expenditure, then, by the B. & 0. R. R. 

 Co. in Daviess County is $106,000, and it was probably much more. 

 The bridge replaced, however, is much better than the old one. 

 The extra forty feet opening will be a great help, but it would 

 undoubtedly have been much better and safer to have had the 

 opening made much wider through the use of trestle work. The 

 grade through the valley was so high that the water never got above 

 it at any place, but was forced to go through the fcAV narrow openings. 

 The concentrated force of the waters is what caused the damage at 

 the river bridge and at 'Blue Hole.' 



The C. & E. L R. R. Co. lost about one-half of the bridge 

 on the East Fork, between Washington and Petersburg. As yet 

 they have not replaced it, but are carrying on traffic over a tem- 



