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The Evening World Domestic News June 4, 1889
New York, New York, New York
What is this article about?
An unknown rider on a bay horse raced through the Conemaugh Valley warning residents that the dam was giving way, but was overtaken by the flood; John G. Park, a civil engineer, also warned villagers and telegraphed Johnstown, saving hundreds of lives.
Quality green show the numbers
Measured from the scan
— how cleanly the OCR engine read the characters
- Mean ink quality
- 99.0% The length-weighted average confidence across the OCR lines — the mean of exactly the per-line scores whose tails the two figures below report. Typical is 99%.
- Illegible ink
- 0.0% Text sitting in OCR-detected lines that scored below 80% confidence — very shaky reads. Weighted by line length, so one long bad line counts for more than a short one.
- Uncertain ink
- 1.3% Text in lines that scored 80–90% — somewhat shaky reads.
- Matches source
- 99.38% How closely the served text matches the raw OCR of the same boxes, letter by letter, after collapsing spacing and case. This measures agreement, not correctness: the OCR is often wrong and the extractor corrects it, so 100% does not mean perfect, and a low figure usually means poor scan text was rewritten rather than that text was lost (length vs source shows loss).
- Length vs source
- 99.61% Below 100% means text was dropped from the OCR; above means text was added to make it read.
Assembled by the extraction model
— whether the stitched-together text holds up; catches layout and segmentation errors, which the scores above cannot see
- Transcription confidence
- 93.0% (typical 96%) How cleanly the extractor could assemble what it was given. Low here with clean ink scores points at layout analysis — the characters were read correctly but grouped or ordered wrongly.
- Comprehension
- 95.0% Whether the piece reads coherently start to finish. Can stay high while transcription confidence drops, when only part of the component is affected.
Clipping
Full Text
THE HERO WHO RODE TO WARN THE PEOPLE.
HEROES OF THE FLOOD.
An Unknown Paul Revere's Wild Ride Through that Valley of Death.
Pittsburg, Pa., June 4.—Buried beneath the wreckage in the Conemaugh Valley lies an unknown hero, who sacrificed his life in a noble but hopeless cause.
When the pent-up waters had begun to break their way through the dam and before they had rushed forward on their pathway of destruction, a great bay horse came galloping through the road that leads towards Johnstown. Above the clatter of his iron-bound hoofs arose the voice of his rider shouting a warning:
"The dam is giving way. Run for the hills, the valley will be flooded."
Men and women came to their doors as he passed and looked after him wonderingly. They had often heard alarming rumors about the waters of the Conemaugh Lake some day pouring down upon them, but they had not, so they smiled and wondered and thought the wild rider some insane man perhaps.
But on tore the great bay, and like Paul Revere of old the rider shouted out his warning as he sped along.
Nearer and nearer he came to the doomed city, and almost despairing grew his cry. His foam-flecked horse labored as he tore along, but on and on he went.
Behind him came a sullen roar. The torrent had broken loose and was pursuing him.
Over the ground that he had passed in his noble mission it rushed, hurling together trees and houses and human beings in one terrible medley.
Forty feet high it came surging along. The unfortunates, who had not heeded the warning, were caught in its relentless maw.
With lightning speed it poured forward in pursuit of the bay horse and the daring rider who had tried to rob the torrent of its prey.
The horse sped fast, but the waters flew faster still.
But it was an unfair race.
Close was the torrent behind him at the Pennsylvania Railroad, and as horse and rider got upon it the great wave overwhelmed them and they were lost in the whirling flood.
Another brave man who risked his life to warn the unfortunates in the doomed valley was John G. Park, a civil engineer from Philadelphia. Early on Friday morning he saw that the dam might burst, but thought that an outlet might save it. With a force of thirty Italian laborers, he set to work to prepare another sluice.
After this had been done the water still continued to rise. Fast it rose, too—nearly a foot an hour. Another outlet was cut, but it did no good.
Then the young engineer mounted a horse and started to warn the people in the village of South Fork, which was just below. At breakneck speed he went, shouting out his warning.
Hundreds of people took to the adjacent hills and thus saved their lives.
Reaching South Fork Station he telegraphed to Johnstown, and two men were started through that city warning the people to flee.
Some heeded but others did not believe there was danger and remained to perish.
Mr. Park says that at noon of that awful day everybody in the Conemaugh Valley knew, or should have known of the danger. But they had heard the cry of wolf so often they did not heed it.
HEROES OF THE FLOOD.
An Unknown Paul Revere's Wild Ride Through that Valley of Death.
Pittsburg, Pa., June 4.—Buried beneath the wreckage in the Conemaugh Valley lies an unknown hero, who sacrificed his life in a noble but hopeless cause.
When the pent-up waters had begun to break their way through the dam and before they had rushed forward on their pathway of destruction, a great bay horse came galloping through the road that leads towards Johnstown. Above the clatter of his iron-bound hoofs arose the voice of his rider shouting a warning:
"The dam is giving way. Run for the hills, the valley will be flooded."
Men and women came to their doors as he passed and looked after him wonderingly. They had often heard alarming rumors about the waters of the Conemaugh Lake some day pouring down upon them, but they had not, so they smiled and wondered and thought the wild rider some insane man perhaps.
But on tore the great bay, and like Paul Revere of old the rider shouted out his warning as he sped along.
Nearer and nearer he came to the doomed city, and almost despairing grew his cry. His foam-flecked horse labored as he tore along, but on and on he went.
Behind him came a sullen roar. The torrent had broken loose and was pursuing him.
Over the ground that he had passed in his noble mission it rushed, hurling together trees and houses and human beings in one terrible medley.
Forty feet high it came surging along. The unfortunates, who had not heeded the warning, were caught in its relentless maw.
With lightning speed it poured forward in pursuit of the bay horse and the daring rider who had tried to rob the torrent of its prey.
The horse sped fast, but the waters flew faster still.
But it was an unfair race.
Close was the torrent behind him at the Pennsylvania Railroad, and as horse and rider got upon it the great wave overwhelmed them and they were lost in the whirling flood.
Another brave man who risked his life to warn the unfortunates in the doomed valley was John G. Park, a civil engineer from Philadelphia. Early on Friday morning he saw that the dam might burst, but thought that an outlet might save it. With a force of thirty Italian laborers, he set to work to prepare another sluice.
After this had been done the water still continued to rise. Fast it rose, too—nearly a foot an hour. Another outlet was cut, but it did no good.
Then the young engineer mounted a horse and started to warn the people in the village of South Fork, which was just below. At breakneck speed he went, shouting out his warning.
Hundreds of people took to the adjacent hills and thus saved their lives.
Reaching South Fork Station he telegraphed to Johnstown, and two men were started through that city warning the people to flee.
Some heeded but others did not believe there was danger and remained to perish.
Mr. Park says that at noon of that awful day everybody in the Conemaugh Valley knew, or should have known of the danger. But they had heard the cry of wolf so often they did not heed it.
What sub-type of article is it?
Disaster
What keywords are associated?
Johnstown Flood
Heroic Ride
Dam Warning
What entities or persons were involved?
John G. Park
Where did it happen?
Conemaugh Valley, Pennsylvania
Domestic News Details
Primary Location
Conemaugh Valley, Pennsylvania
Event Date
Friday
Key Persons
John G. Park
Outcome
unknown hero drowned; hundreds saved by park's warning.